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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Alright brethren I hope you got your hymnals We'll begin by singing Let's turn to hymn number 165 165 please 165 and we'll begin by singing I'll Worship The King 165 Let's start by singing I'll Worship The King and if you're able to stand please do 165 I'll Worship The King 🎵Music🎵 Alright let's sing up to the Lord I'll Worship The King all glorious above and gratefully sing His wonderful love I'll shoot and defend her the ancient of days a million in splendor and murdered with grace Rose above his height and sing of his grace Stone is the light to span of his face His chariots are wrapped burning thunder clouds form and dark is his path on the wing of the storm Thy bountiful care what on earth resides He breathes in the air it shines in the light It streams from the hilt with his hands to the plain and sweetly distills with the dew and the rain Frail children of us and people as frail in need you be just you are finally to fail I know since how tender how firm to the end I'll make her defend everything her and friend Brother Mike, would you open up a word of prayer please? We praise you so much for being in church today for the privilege that we have Thank you for the brethren who were able to make it I pray that you please heal Rob and Rachel and their parents as well that they will be able to be with us on Wednesday at least and please bless the preaching, bless the sovereignty and please be glorified in all that we do say In the beautiful name of Jesus we pray Amen Alright brethren you can sit Let's turn to our next hymn, it's hymn number 153 153 please and we'll sing How Firm a Foundation 1-5-3 How Firm a Foundation How Firm a Foundation He sins of the Lord He is laid for your pain In His excellent Word All your cares be saved And to You we have said All to You we forget Which to Jesus have fled In every condition In sickness, in health In all that is new For our bound living world At home and aboard On the land, on the sea As your days lay demand Shall your strength ever be When through my retires Thy love-frame shall lie Thy grace holds the vision Shall be thy supply Her faith shall not hurt me Thy own design Thy crossing comes true And my own true divine Being bound to a place For my people shall move Thy sovereign feature A change of old love And where holiness Shall let him move anew Thy claims they shall still In thy own holy court The soul that on Jesus Have we, who we hold I will not, I will not Be here to live close And so all hell Should and never forsake I'll never, no never Will never forsake Alright, great singing. Our next song before the Bible reading Is actually from Psalm 19 So if you've got your Bibles Please turn to Psalm 19 Turn to Psalm 19 Alright, Psalm 19 please Psalm 19 Apologies for the wet floor guys We'll get that sorted But Psalm 19 And hopefully you guys remember how to sing this one So we're going to start in verse number 7 And don't forget that verse number 10 Is the chorus Okay, verse number 10 is the chorus And we'll start with verse number 7 We'll sing verse 7, 8, 9 11 and 14 As the stanzas and verse number 10 as the chorus Alright, we don't have music for it So it's a cappella Alright, from verse number 7, ready? The law of the Lord is perfect Convert in the soul The testimony of the Lord is sure Making wise the simple More to be desired are they than gold Yea, then much fine gold Sweeter also than honey And the honeycomb The statutes of the Lord are right Rejoice in the heart The commandment of the Lord is pure And light in the eyes More to be desired are they than gold Yea, then much fine gold Sweeter also than honey And the honeycomb Verse number 9 The fear of the Lord is clean Enduring forever The judgments of the Lord are true And righteous all together More to be desired are they than gold Yea, then much fine gold Sweeter also than honey And the honeycomb Verse 11 Moreover by them Is thy servant ward And in keeping of them There is great reward More to be desired are they than gold Yea, then much fine gold Sweeter also than honey And the honeycomb Verse 14 Let the words of thy mouth And the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord My strength and my redeemer More to be desired are they than gold Yea, then much fine gold Sweeter also than honey And the honeycomb Alright, good work. Alright, now take your Bibles and please turn to Nehemiah chapter number 8 please. Nehemiah chapter number 8. And brother Hayden is coming up for the reading. Nehemiah chapter number 8. Nehemiah chapter 8. And all the people gathered themselves together As one man into the street that was before the water gate And they spoke unto Ezra the scribe To bring the book of the law of Moses Which the Lord had commanded to Israel And Ezra the priest bought the law before the congregation Both of men and women And all that could hear with understanding Upon the first day of the seventh month And he read therein before the street And was before the water gate From the morning until midday Before the men and the women And those that could understand And the ears of all the people were attentive Unto the book of the law And Ezra the scribe stood upon A pulpit of wood Which they had made for the purpose And beside him stood Matathiah and Shema And Aniah and Urijah And Hilkiah Messiah on his right hand And on his left hand Padiah and Mishael And Malchiah and Hashim And Hashdabana And Zechariah and Meshulim And Ezra opened the book In the sight of all the people For he was above all the people And when he opened it All the people stood up And Ezra blessed the Lord And Ezra blessed the Lord The great God And all the people answered Amen, Amen With lifting up their hands And they bowed their heads And worshiped the Lord With their faces to the ground And Jeshua and Bani And Cherubiah Jamin, Akub, Shebethiah Hodeger, Messiah Kalita, Azariah Jozabad, Hanan, Paliah And the Levites caused the people To understand the law And the people stood in their place So they read in the book In the law of God Distinctly And gave the sense And caused them to understand The reading And Nehemiah Which is the Tershothah And Ezra the priest The scribe And the Levites That taught the people Said unto all the people This day is holy For this day is holy Unto the Lord your God More not nor weep For all the people wept When they heard The words of the law Then he said unto them Go your way Eat the fat And drink the sweet And send portions unto them For whom Nothing is prepared For this day is holy Unto our Lord Neither be ye sorry For the joy of the Lord Is your strength So the Levites Stilled all the people saying Hold your peace For the day is holy Neither be ye grieved And all the people Went their way to eat And to drink And to send portions And to make mirth Because they had understood The words that were Declared unto them And on the second day They And on the second day We gathered together The chief of the fathers Of all the people The priests and the Levites Under Ezra the scribe Even to understand The words of the law And they were found Written in the law With the Lord Which the Lord had Commanded by Moses That the children of Israel Should dwell in the booths In the feast of the seventh month And that they should publish And proclaim in all their cities And in Jerusalem Saying Go forth under the mount And fetch olive branches And pine branches And myrtle branches And palm branches And branches of thick trees To make booths As it is written So the people went forth And brought them And made themselves booths Every one upon the roof Of his house And in their courts And in the courts Of the house of God And in the street Of the water gate And in the street Of the gate of Ephraim And all the congregation Of them And to them They were come again Out of the captivity Made booths And sat under the booths For since the days of Joshua The son of Nun Unto that day Had not the children of Israel Done so And there was also And there was very great gladness Also, day by day From the first day Unto the last day He read in the book Of the law of God And they kept the feast Seven days And on the eighth day Was a solemn assembly According unto the matter Let's pray Heavenly Father Lord Thank you so much That we can be here This evening Lord I just want to pray For the families The families that aren't able To make it here Lord with us I pray that you comfort To them Lord Help them to gain Understanding from the sermon Lord and please Have everyone to understand The sermon Sitting here Lord I thank you for the week That we've had I thank you for the week To come In Jesus' name Amen Amen Thanks brother Okay, Nehemiah chapter 8 Look at verse number 13 It says And on the second day We're gathered together The chief of the fathers Of all the people The priests and the Levites Unto Ezra the scribe Even to understand The words of the law The title of the sermon This morning is Understand The words of the law Understand The words of the law Nehemiah chapter 8 Is one chapter that I I remember very clearly Reading for the very first time I don't know if you experienced that There are just certain things That pop out to me First time reading And the reason for it was Nehemiah chapter 8 Kind of explained to me Why many churches Have a very similar tradition In the way they do things And what we find in Nehemiah chapter 8 Is many things that we do as a church You may not have really picked up on it Why many, many churches do things In a very similar way And I'll go through it As we go through this chapter So But as I said to you The title of the sermon is Understand the words of the law Five times in this chapter The word Understand Or understanding Appears in the chapter So God really wants us To learn And understand what his word says Look at there in verse number one Let's start there Nehemiah chapter 8 verse number one It says And all the people gather themselves together Hey isn't that what we do in church? All the people gather themselves together It says As one man Now when we think about the church It's called the body of Christ The Lord Jesus Christ is that one man It's one body You know we're a unified group That's gathered together And the fact that it's called as one man Means that they come together As that one body You know that one body It says It says Into the streets And listen brave man If we didn't have a building We'd just meet in a street And it'd just be just fine You know it's not about the location It's being gathered together The church is The people The gathering of the people together Into the street That was before the Watergate And they spake unto Ezra the scribe To bring the book of the law of Moses Which the Lord had commanded Israel So this is The first time they were introduced to Ezra Outside of the book of Ezra So remember From a historical perspective You've got the book of Ezra Then the book of Nehemiah follows straight after it And so now we're starting to see a bit of a What's the word I'm looking for? Overlap between Ezra and Nehemiah And Ezra yeah He definitely was a scribe Ezra was given the task to Instruct people in the word of God You know Ezra being a scribe He would be someone that was Copying the manuscripts He was someone that was keeping records Of history and Just general record keeping That was his main job And his job to come back into Jerusalem with the second wave Was to instruct people in the word of God Which is why he's active in this point in time Hey but what does Ezra the scribe bring? You know what does he teach in the people? It says Ezra the scribe to bring The book of the law of Moses Which the Lord had commanded to Israel So the next thing that we learn about the importance Of coming together as a congregation As a church Is we come to hear From the book of the law of Moses Or the book of the Bible, the scriptures You know the words of God The words of God is why we gather together I want you to remember that Because look there are various reasons Why we come to church isn't there? Various reasons We come for well to learn the law of God As we saw there We come for fellowship We come to serve and praise the Lord Hey we come to be challenged You know we come for several reasons Just to give our worship to God But you know the key thing You want to come to church for Is to understand the words of the Lord To understand the scriptures That's the whole point of preaching You know I mean You know if you ask me personally Do you like standing behind a pulpit And having all eyes on you For a solid 40 minutes to an hour Every week You know every service No I don't I don't like people's faces on me You know I even have a hard time Looking at you When I'm preaching Like I don't like the attention We don't come to give Pastor Kevin attention We come to give the word of God attention We come to learn from his word That's the whole point of coming to church And listening to preaching Now what I like about the fact that they've come What area have they come to meet It says into the street that was before The water gate The water gate Now you may recall back in Nehemiah 3 When I went chapter by chapter through that That we were looking at all the different gates You know the 10 gates of Jerusalem That are mentioned in that chapter And I touched upon the water gate And you may recall That the water gate Just I'll read to you Don't you turn there Just Ephesians 5 26 I was taking a spiritual lesson As to what all these gates represented And when I taught about the water gates I turned to Ephesians 5 26 That says That he speaking of Jesus might sanctify And cleanse it That cleansed the church With the washing of water By the word And then it says in verse 27 That he might present it to himself A glorious church Not having spot or wrinkle Or any such thing But that it should be holy and without blemish And so we were looking at the spiritual lessons Of the different gates Hey the water gate was a place You know spiritually speaking A place where we can be watered With God's word We can have the spots and the wrinkles The sins All the things that are incompatible with God's will With God's word Being washed by that water You know and that's again A purpose of preaching To wash you To present to the Lord Jesus Christ A glorious church Without spot or wrinkle This is why preaching is so important I think it's so It's not a coincidence The fact that they're meeting at the water gate To be cleansed by the word of God Let's keep going there verse number 2 And Ezra the priest Brought the law before the congregation Now look at the congregation It says both of men and women Hey that's what we have right here A congregation of men and women And then it says this And all that could hear with understanding Upon the first day of the seventh month And so as we keep going through this I hope you see the parallels of church Now one thing that I really want you to understand here The people that are being gathered together To hear the words of God It says here Both men and women And all that could hear with understanding Alright Now this is why As a church When we have our church congregation This is why we don't have While we're singing praises While we're preaching the word This is why we don't have a separate ministry Going on at the same time Okay We don't want to pull people away I know a lot of churches do this You know I've been in churches Where basically Oh the kids are too noisy So during the sermon Let's take the kids away For Sunday school Look I'm not against taking the kids And instructing the kids But I think it's a major problem When people are coming to church To hear the word of God To understand the word of God And you think Well let's take the kids away I mean to me that's a problem Because the congregation Are all that can hear with understanding Okay That's boy Girl Man Woman Everybody should be together Making up that one body You know one thing in new life of the church We're never going to have a separate ministry During the main church service Never And you might say Well the kids don't understand They're too young Well if the kids don't understand Then there's a problem with the preacher I tell you that The preachers are just saying Too many big words Just preaching above people's intellect And at that point it doesn't help anybody To me the right level of preaching Is a point where the children Actually walk away Understanding something And if the kids understand it Then definitely the adults Are going to understand it To me that's a good range Like my goal when I come to preach Is to make sure my children walk away With having learnt something Okay And I think when we have this attitude I'll take the kids away We underestimate our children We underestimate how much they can process You know children brains are like sponges Everyone says that You know if you want to learn something It's time to learn it as children As we get older It's harder to learn things So why remove the kids away When they're at that perfect age of understanding Perfect age of learning Oh worry about that when they become adults Well then they become more hardened They become less able to process The word of God And less able to understand What God expects from them And so to me the right level of preaching Is where children can walk away And have captured something From that preaching And then I know the adults will understand Automatically anyway And so brethren that's why If you've ever wondered why Why don't we take the kids away This is why We see the pattern In the book of Nehemiah Many churches you know Do take the kids away I think it's a problem I think it's a problem You know I've been Look I'm not like I've been a Sunday school teacher Okay I've been teaching I taught Sunday school for about four years Every single week Every single Sunday I was preaching basically a sermon To the children And the big problem that I saw in Sunday school Is that the kids would go to Sunday school That have their fun and games And then when they got the age Where there was no longer Sunday school And they wanted to bring them back In the church congregation They weren't interested in the church anymore That they were used to the fun and games They were used to the lollies That's what they thought church was And then to sit down for a solid 40 minutes To an hour To hear a sermon They just couldn't handle it You know parents let me encourage you Get your children to sit in church To pay attention to God's word Get into that habit While they're young While they can absorb God's word It's so important And you know what I was not only the Sunday school teacher But I was Sunday school superintendent So I was overseeing all the Sunday school classes We had Sunday school classes All the way to age 12 And I just made sure The oldest age group While I was the superintendent I just made sure That the oldest age group The 11 and 12 year olds That the Sunday school class Looked pretty much like church As much as church as it could be church Right with the time that we had You know to sing some hymns To hear some preaching from God's word Because I wanted to make sure That when they left Sunday school That they understood Okay this is what church is all about Rather than having that time of difficulty Of adjusting back into the church environment But this is why brethren We don't have a separate service Taking place at this time The other thing that I want you to notice there When did they meet It says they met here And all that could hear What we're understanding Upon the first day of the seventh month Okay That's not why we meet On the first day of the week But you know there's a reason why They're meeting here On the first day of the seventh month And I want you to keep your finger there And please turn to Leviticus chapter 23 Please keep your finger there And turn to Leviticus 23 please Leviticus chapter 23 Leviticus chapter 23 please And verse number 23 Leviticus 23, 23 The Bible says And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Speak unto the children of Israel saying In the seventh month In the first day of the month So you can see there's something going on here Ye shall have a Sabbath A memorial of blowing of trumpets And holy convocation Of blowing of trumpets And holy convocation Okay So this is known as the feast of trumpets If you've ever studied for the feast Of the Old Testament You'll often know this one As the feast of trumpets And so they would meet on the first day Of the seventh month And they'd be blowing Bum ba dum bum Trumpet sounds Okay And the whole point of the blowing trumpet It was a time of celebration It was a time of memorial Of all the things All the great things That God has done for them And they would blow these trumpets It was meant to be a time of rejoicing Of celebration Of just taking that time Just to thank God As an entire nation On the first day of the seventh month And so because we see that You know that was the instruction That God gave to Moses Then you understand When they brought the Lord of Moses They're like okay We've got to meet on the first day Of the seventh month And they're celebrating the feast of trumpets Now this is important Because as we keep going You understand what the issue is Because there's a point Where they're sorrowing They're crying And it's meant to be a celebration Of rejoicing Okay So you start to pick up These little things As we go through the chapter there Alright Verse number three Verse number three It says there are any red therein Before the street That was before the Watergate Now this is how long the church service Is going as it were Okay From the morning Until midday From the morning Until midday Hey that's a pretty long church service You know We average Our church service averages Somewhere between an hour and ten minutes To an hour and a half Okay I know we have a bit of a break Between We have a service at 12pm So maybe we should stop at midday To follow the pattern here right At least we have a little bit of a break For fellowship or soul winning Whatever it is that you want to do Okay But listen They're there For a long time You know And they're sitting patiently Listening to God's word being preached It says here Before the men and the women And those that could understand And the ears Look at this Of all the people Were attentive To the book of the law Now brethren Come to church And be ready to be attentive To God's word Be attentive Pay attention You know These things are recorded in the bible For us to just Pause and meditate upon this You know I know Sitting in the church pew That I wasn't always attentive Okay And I know right now Some of you are probably not attentive Okay And why Because you know It's just the human nature This is why we have these things To remind us We need to be attentive To God's word Like I said to you It's not so much Be attentive to Pastor Kevin Or the other person We should be respectful For everyone who's preaching And give them attention But really We're paying attention To God's word God What are you speaking to me about today What do you want to teach me today Pay attention You know Sometimes when we're sitting in the church pew We're thinking about Work Man What am I I've got to get started on Monday And I've got to get onto this project That project We might be thinking about lunch You know Getting a bit hungry at the moment Is the sermon going to go You know Is pastor going to be finished soon You know I mean there are so many things That might be Might go through your mind And you know If you've got little children You know It's going to be You know Not that it's wrong But you're going to have to give attention To your little children And you know Even when you're giving attention To your little children You still want to have one ear out Listening to God's word While you're trying to do other things As a mother I understand There are distractions That you just can't get away from But as much as Is it possible Within you brethren Please Just try to forget About everything else Maybe even Go to the Lord in prayer And say Lord Help me just to be focused On your word today Help me to Help me to pay attention And get something From the preaching of your word And so brethren Paying attention The other thing that I think Is really important here Is that it says That he read the Bible He read the Bible This is why again At New Life Baptist Church We read the Bible You know Before the sermon We read an entire chapter of the Bible Now I want to be clear about something These aren't commandments It's not saying This is how You know You have a church service So this is how you have a gathering To honour These aren't commandments It's just history It's what the people did And I think many times It's just good to see the pattern in the Bible And follow after that pattern Where possible Okay It's not a commandment It's not like if we did something A little bit differently That we're in sin It's just that That's what they've done Hey let's follow What the other people of God did You know As much as we possibly can But you know You know I've not really been in a church That does that You know Usually The reading can be A couple of verses You know I mean I'm sure we've all been to a church Where maybe even the pastors Are preaching It's one or two verses And that's it The rest of it Is the wisdom of man You know This is why I want to make sure That every sermon we preach Is a sermon full of verses Full of the Bible We want to hear from God's word Not necessarily The wisdom of man We want to receive The wisdom of God That comes through his word It's so important That we pay attention And we read the Bible During church service Verse number four Verse number four It says And Ezra the scribe Stood upon a pulpit of wood And now you understand Why we have a Pulpit of wood Brevin this church Is not going to have A pulpit of plastic Is everything wrong Or sinful about it No there is nothing sinful About having a pulpit of plastic Okay But you know Again We're trying to see the patterns In the Bible And I love this I love That's why churches Are pulled But you know As I said to you Read from Nehemiah chapter eight And I'm like Oh that's why Oh that's why No that's why I just keep seeing These things Why we do certain things In a certain way And I realise that A lot of it comes from Nehemiah chapter eight Now if God willing One day someone in this church Is able to develop themselves Into a past And they decide to go Inside a church Let me strongly recommend That you pattern yourself After Nehemiah chapter eight You know And pattern yourself As much biblically As you can But when you do that You know God will give you A special blessing When he sees you following God's word Now one thing I do notice It says That he stood upon The pulpit of wood And so You may look at some of I don't know if you've seen Some older churches Old church buildings And they've got like The old church pews Actually when I was looking for A church pew I was looking up church pews And I found a few of them That I could purchase Old ones Where it's not just A pulpit like this But actually it's got stairs I don't know if you know What I'm talking about It's got stairs That are really high And that's pretty much The kind of pulpit of wood I guess That Ezra was standing on Something that had a few stairs That led him to a point Where he was also Standing over the people Now I guess the closest thing We've got here Is the fact that we have A step up So you are a little bit higher Over the people In that sense But again I'm just showing you why These things get done In many churches It says That Ezra the scribe Stood upon a pulpit of wood Which they had made him For the purpose I guess For the purpose Of preaching God's word And I really appreciate Brother Rob Claddink For making this pulpit of wood For that purpose That we can use this To preach the word of God It says And beside him stood Matithiah And Shema And Anniah And Urijah And Hilkiah And Maasiah On his right hand On his left hand Pedahiah And Mishael And Melchiah And Hashim And Hashbadanah Zechariah And Meshalem Alright so Ezra's got other scribes And other priests there Because As we go through this You'll start to notice that It's not just Ezra Doing the preaching It's this various men Doing the reading Various men doing the preaching And again The reason You know We look at that You know I've never wanted to be This church of a Just a one man show A one man preacher You know This is why we sometimes rotate Other men to come behind This pulpit And to expound The word of God Alright But yeah I do just want to make it clear That you know When God gives us commandment If God commanded To have a pulpit of wood Then we would have to have that But if we see God's people Just doing that Hey that's great Let's do it ourselves We're following a pattern You know I don't want you to get the idea That a church is sinful If they've got some Clear plastic Feeble pulpit You know I mean I'd be a little bit worried Going to that church Because I don't think that pastor Is going to be banging That pulpit very strongly Because they're just Going to fall over Okay We want to go to the church Where the preaching Is a little bit more forceful But I don't want you to think That they're in sin Or something like that You know We're a better church Because we've got a pulpit of wood You know I'm just saying These are patterns You know And we try to follow patterns As much as we can You know When it comes to God's word Alright Verse number five Verse number five And Ezra opened the book In the sight of all the people And it says here For he was above all the people So you can see He stood on that pulpit There were stairs There was something That elevated him In that position And when he opened it There was something else That we see here And some churches practice this I've been in a church Where they practice this Where a couple of verses Are preached And the people will stand up During the time of the reading Say, Pastor Kevin Why don't we do that Because we read a whole chapter Alright Other churches that do it Yeah, yeah They read one or two verses They read five verses Maybe max And people stand up for that But we generally maybe We need to get back into that habit Of standing up You know When we sing that first hymn You know The whole point of standing up Is that we're honouring the Lord You know Because we're just thinking About the Lord God And giving him reverence And so you can see people Standing up here As the word of God Is being read So let me encourage you, Reverend The fact that Ezra opened the book In the sight of all the people You know He was proving to people That I'm reading to you From the Lord of Moses We're reading from the Bible Now Back in these days They did not have the printing press They were reliant on the scribes To make copies of the Bible And obviously not everybody Had a copy You know This would be something that Maybe the elders of the cities had You know Prominent people In prominent positions And you know Even when we go through the old In the New Testament When Jesus Christ would enter Into a synagogue The whole point of the synagogue Was to go to a place Where people can hear And see the Bible being read Not everybody had their own copies Now let me encourage you, Reverend We don't have an excuse You know Please bring your Bibles to church I know we have some Bibles here Those Bibles that are there Are primarily And maybe we'll take them off the shelf From after today But they're primarily for new believers When we go door to door When someone gets saved And they need a Bible We want to give them those Bibles We don't want to ruin them here With just Just during church time Like if you need a Bible And you want one of these Bibles Please feel free to take it home But let me encourage you Bring your Bible with you You know We want to make sure that Whatever's been read Whatever's been preached That you can compare that With the word of God in your hands And if you need a copy Of one of these Bibles Please feel free to take one But really I want to keep these For new converts Or people that are interested When we go door to door Soul winning Let's keep going there Verse number 6 Verse number 6 It says And Ezra blessed the Lord The great God Alright So this is why We come We sing praises I'm not sure if they were singing here But you know We come We sing hymns The whole point of singing hymns Is just to bless the Lord To be a sweet sound In the ears of our Lord God That's why we sing To sing to the Lord God You know And when it comes to that First opening prayer When we start church service We want it to be a prayer That blesses the Lord You know We want to lift up his name We want to honour the Lord God Okay And it says And Ezra blessed the Lord The great God Look at this And all the people answered Amen Amen With lifting up their hands And they bowed their heads And worshipped the Lord With their faces to the ground And so we see a few positions of worship People lifting up their hands I know as Baptist We're not really comfortable doing that Because we don't want to be considered Charismatics or something There's nothing wrong The sinful are lifting up your hands Hey What else do they say They bow their heads to the ground There's nothing wrong I don't see the Charismatics doing that Unless they fall to the ground You know I don't see them bowing themselves To the ground in this sense But you know These are just different positions of worship And as Ezra blessed the Lord You know This is again This idea of just Of just thanking God Proclaiming God And giving him worship Giving him praise And this is again Why we practice At the end of prayer Why we say Amen Amen We agree We want the Lord to be worshipped Amen Hey it's also When the Bible's being preached And the Bible's being read If you're in agreement with something Reverend Feel free to say Amen Say Amen right And listen You know Again I've been to churches Where there's a lot of Amens But I know They don't really mean the Amen It's just a habit It's just a tradition It's almost like It's almost like You know A vain repetition almost And you know I've heard things preached Behind the pulpit That are just not quite right It's like Amen Are you sure you mean Amen On that one? Or are you just You know Kind of going for that vain repetition We've got to be careful Look Amen If you agree With something being preached Brethren Say Amen What does Amen mean? It means Truth This is Truth Okay So be it Sure yes This is a surety I agree I agree with a prayer Being praised We're lifting up the Lord Lord God Say Amen If you hear something Amen At the time of the preaching Feel free to say Amen You know This is what they did back then You know And this is again Why we still practice These things today The word Amen Is originally a Hebrew word And then it's also a Greek word It's also a Latin word And now it's an English word Like This word Amen Applies to so many different languages It started as a Hebrew word But it's been adopted By all the different languages We basically say it Exactly the same way Verse number seven Verse number seven And the Levites Caused the people Look at this Caused the Levites So we have different Levites We have different preachers here Different priests What are they doing? They caused the people To understand the law And the people stood in their place Again, they've been attentive To the words of God Now what is the job of the preacher here? To cause people to understand the law Okay So yes, we do a lot of Bible reading We read a lot of verses But then it's the preacher's job To help people To cause them To understand what is being preached Alright You know For the men that come up to preach You know Not that, you know I think you're just fine To be honest with you I'm not really having a go at anybody here But you know Just get into that habit You already know it anyway When you read a passage Don't just think I read the passage They understand The church understands What is being said You know The passage has been read They should understand No Read the passage And it's your job To expand the passage What is the passage saying? Caused the people To understand What the passage says You know what If you've got a preacher Behind the pulpit And the people walk away And you know what I don't really understand I don't know what was being preached I don't really understand The point of that sermon You know I don't really get anything out of that Then there's something wrong With the preacher Okay It's the preacher's job To really expound God's word And of course As saved people We have the Holy Ghost Indwelling each one of us That helps us Process the information Helps us apply it In our lives You know One of the qualifications For being a pastor I'll quickly read to you From 1 Timothy 3 to It says A bishop Then must be blameless The husband of one wife Vigilant Sober Of good behaviour Given to hospitality Apt to teach Apt to teach So the preacher Especially the pastor Must have the aptitude To be able to teach God's word To take God's word Process that information Feed people God's word In fact That is the number one job Of the pastor To feed the sheep To take God's word And to give you nourishing Spiritual food That can help you Throughout the week That is the job of the preacher You know preachers If you're preaching a sermon And nobody understands Don't get angry at the people Point the finger at yourself It's your job To cause the people To understand And as we saw here Multiple preachers Again this is why You know I love rotating men Not that I'm lazy Not that I run out of sermons It's just that It's a good practice It's a good pattern To let different men Have the opportunity To expound God's word And if there's any men here That would like to try it one day You haven't done any preaching Brother Hayden You know Is there anyone else That would like to have an opportunity Brother Michael You know Just let me know Give me a yell Let me know And I'll schedule you in And give you the opportunity To practice a sermon Okay verse number eight Verse number eight Now this is really cool It says So they read In the book In the law of God Distinctly And gave the sense And caused them To understand The reading Now we understand We get the process What is it That's going to help people Understand the reading? Number one You have to read In the book of the law of God Distinctly Okay Distinctly means basically clearly Okay It has to be clearly Coming from God's word As it were Right You need to be able to determine Is this God's word Or is this the opinion of man Okay There's got to be clarity You know When we read God's word You know I have a problem with mumbling sometimes Sometimes I have a problem Of eating my words You know One reason I raise my volume When I preach Is because it's a good practice To have But secondly It helps me get the words Out of my mouth You know If you're speaking to me One on one Sometimes I just I eat my words Okay But when it comes to preaching I realise I've got to lift my voice And be a little bit more clear When I'm speaking God's word We want that clarity Coming through Not just the clarity Of God's word And gave the sense This is why We expand the scriptures We read a passage And then we say This passage is saying X, Y and Z Or this passage Can be applied In this way Can be applied In that way We can take a spiritual lesson Like this And if we do this If we practice this It causes them To understand The reading Alright So this is What preachers must do You know This is what preachers Many times they do This is what Good preachers do Where people walk away I've understood I've learnt something today I can walk away I've been reminded Of that thing Praise God When you come to a church Like that But I know There are many preachers And they just I thank God for their Enthusiasm to preach I thank God That they've got a love For the Lord But they're just Not good preachers They just can't cause People to understand Maybe people walk away With more questions You know And look I've heard this I've heard people come to me And say look You know I just can't understand That preacher I just don't know What the point of that sermon was You know And look I'm not You know If you get that kind of feedback Don't get discouraged Just work on it You know Speak it clearly Expound God's word Make it make sense Okay Cause people to understand And you'll improve immensely In your preaching So One thing that I want to just Clarify I want to sort of expand a little bit here Is When you give the sense There are two ways of doing this Two main ways of doing this Number one You know many times Like we are right now We're going through the historical teaching We're understanding what is taking place At this point in time Okay One thing you need to understand In the Bible Is that there's always one truth Okay There's one thing that is true About that passage Or about that lesson There is always one truth Okay Now There are some passages That contain a double prophecy Where there's a prophecy About the current events But then there might be a prophecy About the coming of Christ Maybe his first coming Maybe a prophecy About his second coming Okay There's a double application To that truth But there's still one truth One truth is a double fulfilment In that passage Okay There's always one truth But the next thing you need to understand There's unlimited applications Okay One truth Unlimited applications This is why you will never get to the end of God's word No matter how many times we read through the Bible No matter how many times it gets preached There's always going to be something new That gets pulled out Because you can apply that one truth In so many different ways Alright But there's always one truth Please understand that Okay One of the main goals When it comes to understanding God's word Is what is God's word saying right now What is the truth of this situation It's why it's so important That you keep things within context What is happening The one truth right now Is that you've got a congregation You know The temple's been built The walls are built People are encouraged It's the first day of the month It's a feast of the trumpets It's a Yeah the feast of the trumpets People get This is the one truth This is the one thing that's taking place But notice that I'm taking an application And applying it to church Okay Hey we can take an application And apply it to homes You know moms and dads Should be teaching their children The word of God And again To read the word distinctly You know Cause them to understand Make the sense of what is being heard Hey we can apply this in We can apply this in your own personal life When you're doing your own reading You know We can apply it in so many different ways But there's always the one truth Okay And sometimes I get preachers saying to me Ah You know You haven't really given me You haven't really called me out For any mistakes in the preaching The one truth is right I'm not likely going to call you out As long as that key truth of that passage Is right I'm not going to really make an issue of it It's just that I may disagree with your application But it doesn't mean it's wrong It just may not mean That that's the way I would apply it Because like I said The Bible can have unlimited application It's like a You just keep You know it's like an onion with various peels Right You keep peeling it You keep peeling it You keep peeling it You know the Bible is an extremely deep book Alright So the main goal Before you try to apply it Is try to figure out What is that one truth That is being taught there In God's word Alright Let's keep going Verse number nine And Nehemiah Which is the Teshathah That word Teshathah has come up before In the book We already know that Nehemiah is the governor Basically it's just another way of saying the governor Okay And Ezra the priest the scribe And the Levites that taught the people Said unto all the people This day is holy unto the Lord your God So Because it's the feast of the trumpets Then they say this Mourn not Nor weep Why are they saying this For all the people wept When they heard the words of the law It's amazing Right I mean the preaching is happening They're learning God's word People begin to weep and mourn Right I mean it's just overwhelming You know they're probably so excited to You know have the walls rebuilt Excited That God is bringing back this nation After this long captivity It's all coming together And now they're being pierced by God's word And they're being moved It's becoming emotional for them And they're mourning and they're weeping You know that's what God's word can do to your heart It can cause you to just touch those emotions Touch the deepness that is in your heart The Bible says in Hebrews 4-12 For the word of God is quick I love that For the word of God is quick That means living It's alive These words They're living right now As they're being preached to you You know they're entering your heart It's entering your mind It's doing a work in your life It says it's quick and powerful And sharper than any two-edged sword Piercing even to divide and asunder Of soul and spirit And of the joints and marrow And is a discerner Look at this Of the thoughts and intents of the heart God's word knows your thoughts It knows your heart It's a bit scary isn't it You know again this is why people say sometimes Oh were you preaching about me pastor I wasn't preaching about you I just was preaching God's word It's God's word that knows your thoughts and your hearts You know if it touches you It touches you Praise God for that Okay continue saying verse number 13 Neither is there any creature That is not manifest in his sight But all things are naked and open Unto the eyes of him With whom we have to do And so the Bible is kind of just Shows your nakedness The Bible shows your failings It shows your problems It shows your sins It shows your frustrations It shows it all Which is why sometimes it makes you uncomfortable Okay It pierces the soul and the spirit And I guess for these people It's probably been a long time Since they had a wonderful church service It's been a long time Where they've been hearing God's word And learning And being caused to understand What God's word is saying And they start to mourn and weep It's touching their very soul And so the people The preachers are like Hey hey no no no Stop crying guys You know it's the feast of the trumpets Right It's the first day of the month It's meant to be a time of rejoicing Stop crying So they're trying to lift them up Trying to encourage people You know Lift them up Get them excited once again For the feast Verse number 10 It says And he said Unto them Go your way Eat the fat And drink the sweet Basically look Just go and celebrate a little bit Okay And send portions Unto them For whom nothing is prepared For this day is holy Unto our Lord Neither be you sorry For the joy of the Lord Is your strength Okay So hey look Go and celebrate Go and eat something nice You know fat I guess is nice on the meat right You know Drink the sweet Again this shows You know Demonstrates Again People that want to push That God encouraged his people To drink alcohol You know They say Because sometimes they read the word wine In the bible They say Well see God was in favour of alcohol Well this shows you That what they're drinking Is sweet Eat the fat You know In order for a beverage To become alcoholic The I was going to say bacteria But it's not bacteria Is it The yeast The yeah The little microorganisms They eat the sugar up And they convert the sugar Into alcohol Okay And so the fact That they're drinking something sweet Shows you It's not alcoholic beverages That they're drinking here They're not going out partying On a drunken You know having a drunken party On the first day of the month They're drinking sweet juice They're drinking Freshly squeezed juice You know Freshly squeezed grape juice You know And this is to cause And to celebrate And to have a great time And to rejoice You know Not to be sorry And they're just reminded For the joy of the Lord Is your strength And so brethren Sometimes maybe the word of God Makes you sorry Maybe it makes you a little bit emotional A little bit sad You know Remind yourself that You know To bring back that joy To remind yourself Of that joy Is to remind yourself That the Lord is your strength You know God will lift you up God will get you through the day God will help you Through the trials And you remind yourself That what you have It will bring back the rejoicing That was the whole point Of the feast The tabernacle Sorry The feast of the trumpets Again The loud noise The proclamation Thanking God For all the great things That he's done For the nation But once again The people just overwhelmed With the preaching of God's word It's been a Been a long time for them Verse number 11 Verse number 11 So the Levites Stealed all the people saying Hold your peace For the day is holy Neither be you grieved And all the people They had their way To eat And to drink And to send portions So they kind of Gifted each other You know And to make A great myrrh Because they had Look at this Why they celebrate now Because They had understood The words that were Declared unto them So What brings them From sorrow to joy Remind We've learned Some great things We've learned From God's law And the rejoicing About it You know brethren I want you to rejoice When you come to church You know I want you To walk away Out of church Rejoicing Having learnt something new And I think What we see Again These people have not Had good preaching For a long time You know And we don't want Church to become This thing Where we just Well we know We need to be there We know We need to show Our face You know And And then you walk Out of church Kind of like I mean We need to be Reminded Of something great You know I know that You know I'm not here Every single sermon Bringing something brand new You know Not every single sermon Is a groundbreaking New truth Wow I never saw that before In the Bible Not every sermon Is going to be like that Most sermons Are going to be repetition We need to be reminded We forget things You know As Christians We become weak You know We may have been walking With the Lord Strongly in one way We need to be reminded Of these things But brethren If you can say Hey you know I've learnt something Something's clearer for me In the Bible Something's been reinforced to me Something's been brought back To my remembrance Or hey I know my children Picked up something great Then that should cause Your heart to rejoice Thank God That I've been able to Receive God's word And learn from God's word Let's keep going there Verse number 13 And on the second day So now First day of the month This is the second day Next day On the second day We're gathered together The chief of the fathers Of all the people The priests and the Levites Unto Ezra the scribe Even to understand The words of the law Hey these guys Could not get enough Okay They're like Alright second day Of the celebrations Let's go back to Ezra You know Who are these people You know It's the key guys The chief of the fathers You know Levites Let's just understand God's law more Let's learn more They go Second day I guess that's why We have a second service sometimes You know We have a second service We brought that back now On Sundays And I hope that's kind of In your heart You know I know We went to one service For a while Because we had to But I hope It doesn't become this Burden for you This oh man Second service Hey you know what If you learn something great In the first service That should cause you Hey you know what I can't wait Let's go back again Let's hear God's word again That's why it's so important That we don't just have One service a week That's wrong Or sinful about it I mean The Bible does not command us Okay Meet once a week Or meet twice a week Or meet three times a week Or meet five times a week The Bible does not give us Those commands Again We just see patterns We see New Testament patterns Of how people met And we follow that tradition Okay But The excitement to come back And listen to God's word Once again I love that I love that You know And this reminds me of You know What Christ said He said And that kind of Sort of helps us understand How much our soul Needs God's word If we need to eat Every day Then we need to consume God's word every day And if you're honest You probably eat more than Once a day Don't you? You probably have your breakfast Lunch and dinner You probably have some snacks In between But you know what If your body needs that Then you should be able to Look at that and say You know what Then my soul needs About the equivalent food In God's word I need to consume A good meal once in a while Well I can't I don't have church every day So what do you do? You have to pick up The Bible yourself You know Dig into God's word Find the truth Feed your soul It's going to be the help For your day Verse number 14 Now this is kind of like tents Okay, booths and tents Now it's already the seventh month But the seventh month Has two feasts Okay We already saw the feast Of the trumpets But what I've just found out There's another feast coming up In the same month Verse number 15 To make booths As it is written So saying look We just heard something From God's law Hey we need to do What God's law says Hey that's the next great trip That we need to learn When we come to church When we learn some great truth From the Bible We say wow We've just seen what God Wants from us We better do what God Wants from us Right Not just a hearer only But a doer of God's word And you see they're practicing this Keep your finger there And go to Leviticus please Go to Leviticus 23 Go to Leviticus 23 I just want to show you What they read In the book of Moses Leviticus 23 Leviticus 23 I know sometimes we think about these feasts And we don't give it a lot of thought In the Old Testament Because we think oh that's just An Old Testament thing We don't need to worry about that And there's truth to that of course You know we're not commanded To follow these feasts But still there's a lot of great applications That we can take Like I said one truth Many applications There's still applications That we can take Out of these feasts That we read about Leviticus 23 please Verse number 39 Leviticus 23 verse 39 It says Also in the fifteenth day Of the seventh month So there's going to be Another celebration Right So this is day number two And they're learning Oh man there's another celebration On the fifteenth day Right So that's why they went To get all those trees They started to make booths Or tents Alright It says When ye have gathered Ye shall keep a feast Unto the Lord Seven days Hey this is a seven day celebration On the first day Shall be a Sabbath And on the eighth day Shall be a Sabbath And ye shall take you On the first day The boughs of goodly trees Trees of palm trees Now you know why they went For the trees And the Am I reading this right Boughs? Booze? How do you pronounce that? Boughs Boughs of thick trees And willows of the brook And ye shall rejoice Before the Lord your God Seven days And ye shall keep it A feast Unto the Lord Seven days In the year It shall be a statute Forever in your generation Ye shall celebrate it In the seventh month Ye shall dwell in booths Seven days So like basically tenting out Like basically a camp Camping out right For seven days And all that are Israelites Born Shall dwell in booths So it's the entire nation Okay Now why did God do this? Why did he want them Living in these Temporary accommodation These tents as it were Verse number 43 Explains to us why That your generations May know That I made The children of Israel To dwell in booths When I brought them Out of the land of Egypt I am the Lord your God And Moses declared Unto the children of Israel The feasts Of the Lord This is also known If you've gone through The feasts And studied through that This is known as The Feast of Tabernacles Feast of booths Feast of Tabernacles Same thing Temporary accommodation All of Israel coming Towards Jerusalem And just camping out For a whole week Okay And why were they commanded To do this? That every generation Would be reminded That they The nation of Israel Was taken out of Egypt And we know they wandered In the wilderness You know And during that time They did not have a fixed location You know To remind the children of Israel That they weren't sojourners Okay And to bring that to remembrance The fact that God has Delivered them Say what is the application For us today Or the fact that In the New Testament Even today brethren We are sojourners This is not our permanent home Our hearts Our desires Should not be upon this earth Our heart desires Should be upon heaven That's where we're headed You know We're just passing through You know The earth as it were Is like Egypt We've been saved out of Egypt And we're heading home one day Into that promised land So that's the application That we can take out of that So that's what they've just learned They've just gone to Ezra They've read more Of Leviticus there Man we've got another celebration Coming up this month Right And so they get themselves ready They practice They do What they've heard They're doers of what they've heard Okay Nehemiah please Chapter 8 verse 16 Verse number 16 please So the people went forth And brought them And made themselves booths Every one upon the roof of his house And in their courts And in the courts of the house of God And in the street of the water gates And in the street of the gate of Ephraim And all the congregation of them That would come again Out of the captivity Made booths And sat under the booths For since the days of Joshua The son of Nun Unto the day had not The tomb of Israel done so And there was very great gladness Alright So they're saying that Basically When we read that For since the days of Joshua That's just another way Of saying Joshua Joshua the son of Nun Is the same Joshua That led the tomb of Israel Into the promised land Right Joshua takes over from Moses And they go into the promised land This is not saying This kind of confused me a little bit It took me a while to wrap my head up This verse took me the longest to work out Okay Cause I mean if you read through your Bibles They did keep The feast of the tabernacles Since Joshua Okay But What is being said here basically Is The people are so excited Right They're so excited to have learnt this great truth They're so excited to celebrate The feast of the tabernacles That The zeal, the excitement Has not been the same Since Joshua entered that land Is basically what it's saying It's not saying they've never done it Till this point It's just that The celebration, the excitement Right It's just It's never been as exciting Since Joshua the son of Nun Went into that promised land That's basically what it's saying there Okay Verse number 18 Also I love this as well Day by day So every single day From the first day until the last day That's all eight days Remember there was a Sabbath on the first day A Sabbath on the eighth day It says from the first day until the last day He read in the book Of the law of God Hey there was read in the Bible There was preach in God's word The entire week And they kept the feast Seven days And on the eighth day Was a solemn assembly According unto the manna How would you like it brethren Church Every week Not every week Every day of the week You know Hey guys you coming to church on Sunday Yeah I'll be there on Monday See you on Monday See you on Tuesday See you on Wednesday See you on Thursday See you on Friday You know I've actually wanted to do that once You know we haven't done it yet We probably would do it one day Where we just select one solid week Alright And we just come to church every week You know we rotate the preachers Maybe we invite a preacher here and there Alright And we just have a solid week We can just commit ourselves to God's house Commit ourselves to the preaching of God's word Being energised Being excited once again For the hearing of God's word I'd love to do that You know some churches do this You know some churches have conferences That go a whole week Or things like that It's the same kind of principle You know where just this entire week We commit that to the Lord I'd like to do that at some point I don't know when But I would love to do that at some point Alright brethren Nehemiah chapter 8 As I said Understand the words of the law You understand how important it is to Be able to process the information It's so important for the preachers Behind the pulpit And to cause people to understand It's so important to teach the truth And to apply it several ways Many ways that we can God's word But really We come to church to hear God's word We come to church to be nourished By the beautiful words of God And I pray that You know if there's any areas here That you need to work on Maybe being attentive to God's word You know not being distracted in the mind You know maybe that's an area That you can work on You know and give your concentration Your attention And your love to the preaching of God's word Okay let's pray Heavenly Father Lord I want to thank you For the great stories that we're Still reading Lord in Nehemiah The great work they've done And the excitement of the people Lord To hear from your word Lord There's been times like that in my life And I've been so excited to hear The preaching of your word To hear The wisdom of God Lord Over the wisdom of man And then there are other times Lord Where you come cold And you get a little distant Lord And you think you've heard it all before So Lord if there's anyone like that In church today Lord I pray that you'd Put a fire in their heart Lord I pray that you touch them Lord be reminded of the great truths That come from the Bible Lord there's nothing else on this earth Like your word Lord there's so much great knowledge Great lessons Great wisdom Great strength Lord that comes from your word God I pray that we would apply The things that we've learnt That we would be able to walk In accordance to your ways For the week Lord And if it's your will Lord For our church to have a solid week Of preaching Lord I pray that you'd put those pieces together The preachers together To make that happen In the near future We pray these things In Jesus' name Amen Alright brethren please take your hymnals And let's sing hymn number 363 Hymn number 363 Sing wonderful words of life 363 Wonderful words of life Okay let's sing it Sing them over again to me Wonderful words of life Thank you Lord I'm here to see Wonderful words of life Words of life and beauty Teach me faith and duty Wonderful words Wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words Wonderful words Wonderful words of life Christ the blessed one gives to all Wonderful words of life Sing a bliss to the loving all Wonderful words of life Who also freely given Who in us to heaven Beautiful words Wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words Wonderful words Wonderful words of life Sing a bliss to the loving all Wonderful words of life Love the Father and peace to all Wonderful words of life Jesus only Savior Sanctify forever Wonderful words Wonderful words Wonderful words of life Wonderful words Wonderful words Wonderful words of life