Happy New Year

God has brought us into this first Lord’s Day of this new year, 2014. It is the will of God that we continue to keep God’s covenant and enjoy his covenant blessings. As covenant Lord, he has chosen us from eternity past. In time, he effectually called us and justified us, forgiving all our sins. He has adopted us as his children, and he is changing us from glory to glory.

It is the will of God that we do not conform to this world and its toxic culture. Rather, God wills that we be transformed by the renewal of our minds by his word. Our covenant Lord gives us stipulations in the Bible, instructing us how we should behave as his servants. I agree with someone who said, “If you don’t change, it is because you don’t want to change. You love your sin.”

As God’s holy people, we must obey our King’s laws exactly, immediately, and delightfully by the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s curse comes upon those who are disobedient. But his blessings come upon the obedient and their children, as Peter declared on the Day of Pentecost: “The promise is for you and your children” (Acts 2:39).

I pray that we will all enjoy God’s blessings in this new year! May this be a year of revival and covenant renewal. May this be the year we hunger and thirst for God’s word. There is no revival without God’s people returning to the stipulations of the Bible, and there is no hunger for the holy Scriptures without God’s gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us. When revival comes, we will repent of our sins. We will not conceal our sins, but we will confess and forsake them, that we may receive mercy. And when revival comes, the permanent principle God gave in 2 Chronicles 7:14 shall be fulfilled: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Revival in Nehemiah’s Time

Let us, then, consider the revival that Nehemiah describes in Nehemiah 8–10. Ezra and Nehemiah were in Jerusalem on Oct. 8, 445 BC. Ezra was the priest and the great Bible teacher. Most people in those days did not own Bibles. Ezra had one, probably the Torah, which is the Pentateuch, otherwise called the Law. On the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, which was also the first day of the first month of the civil calendar, the people of God assembled in Jerusalem before the Water Gate. This occurred soon after the repairing of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah and all God’s people who joined him.

The seventh month was a month of great joy, a month of festivals. The first day of the seventh month was a festival day, the Festival of Trumpets; the tenth day was the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; and the Feast of Tabernacles was from the fifteenth to the twenty-second day of the month.

But because of people’s covenant unfaithfulness, God’s curse came upon them, as we read in Nehemiah 9. The Jews became slaves to their masters of the Persian kingdom. Remember when the Jewish people said to Jesus, “We have never been slaves of anyone” (John 8:33). They were lying. The Levites prayed and acknowledged, “Because of our sins, foreigners rule us, and we are in great distress” (Neh. 9:37). May God help us to say that!

They also said, “In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wickedly” (Neh. 9:33). We will not receive a blessing until we humble ourselves and confess our sins against God and his people. They acknowledged that they did not obey the stipulations of the covenant Lord, the Lord of all history, who chose them in Abraham and delivered them from their severe afflictions in Egypt. God protected them, provided for them, and guided them through the desert for forty years. Then he brought them to Canaan, the land of milk and honey. Yet they became arrogant, rebellious, stubborn, and stiff-necked.

If you are a rebel, you can count on this: God will break your neck (Prov. 29:1). These people threw the Lord’s law behind their backs, as worthless garbage. They paid no attention to the Lord’s prophets who instructed them, and even killed some of them. They grieved the Holy Spirit who guided them by committing horrible blasphemy.

Isaiah said, “Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them” (Isa. 63:10). But you lose, if you remain stiff-necked and stubborn. These people broke the covenant and suffered its curses. Yet the covenant Lord remained faithful. So Nehemiah prayed, “They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them” (Neh. 9:17). He also said, “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. . . . So you handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies” (Neh. 9:19, 27).

In the book of Judges, we also see this cycle: the rebellion of God’s covenant people, the retribution of God, the repentance of God’s people, and the restoration of them to blessing. But then the people of God would become rebellious, and the cycle would begin all over again. We see this also in Psalms 78, 105, and 106. Prosperity always brings about arrogance, stubbornness, and refusal to believe in God and his stipulations.

But God remains faithful to his covenant. He will save his people from their sins. Look at Nehemiah 9:31–32, “But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes—the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings and leaders, upon our priests and prophets, upon our fathers and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.”

God is faithful to his covenant of love. He will show mercy and forgive our sins. He will deliver us. He will pour out his Spirit once again upon us to revive and refresh us. He will once again save us and our children and their children.

Work of the Holy Spirit

When the Holy Spirit is poured out, certain things will happen:

1. Leaders and people will be united in heart and mind when God’s Holy Spirit has been poured out upon them. Paul exhorts, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). True unity is brought about by the Holy Spirit. In a family, if there is no unity, it is a sure sign that the Holy Spirit is not present.
2. There will be a hunger for the word of God, created in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
3. There will be a desire for prayer, also created in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
4. There will be understanding of the gospel, created by the Holy Spirit, in our minds. In speaking of understanding the Scriptures, Paul says, “But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:10). Then he says, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Cor. 2:12). He goes on to say that “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16) so that we can understand and interpret reality correctly.
5. There will be the Spirit-given gifts of true repentance and faith. Without the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing holy, spiritual, and pleasing to God. We remain stubborn, arrogant, wicked, autonomous rebels.
6. There will be delightful obedience to God’s holy commandments, through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
7. There will be covenant love for God and God’s saints, poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
8. There will be daily, systematic Bible study, because the Holy Spirit is moving us to do so.
9. There will be expository preaching of the word by pious and learned pastors like Ezra as people are revived by the Holy Spirit.
10. People will be saved from their sins and trust in Jesus Christ who saves them. They will live transformed lives, shining as lights in this world, as the Holy Spirit works in them.
11. We will worship with great joy as the Holy Spirit produces in us the fruit of the Spirit.

Let us, then, examine the steps of revival as found in these chapters of Nehemiah.

1. Love for the Word of God

We do not get the word of God from our televisions or radios or in so-called religious books. The word of God is found in the Bible. We must take it, open it, and read it. And when we do that, it is because the Holy Spirit is creating in us a desire to know and understand God’s word, that we may obey it.

On the first day of the seventh month, on the festival day of trumpets, the leaders and people gathered before the Water Gate as one man. Here we see the Holy Spirit-created unity. The Spirit drew the leaders and the people, and they came. There were thousands and thousands of people gathered. They built a raised platform so that everyone could look up to see and hear Pastor Ezra and his thirteen associates. When Ezra opened the Bible, all the people stood up in holy reverence of the God of the word. The Bible is not man’s word; it is God’s word of truth. That is why we should look in the Bible, because it alone tells truth.

Man lies. But God is truth, and he cannot lie. So Peter says, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20–21). And Paul tells us, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Jesus said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). David says, “And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times. . . . The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps. 12:6; 19:7; read Ps. 119 also). When you cannot sleep in the middle of the night, why don’t you get up and start reading the Bible? God is not giving you sleep. And the therapy is, get up and read the Bible.

Ezra opened the Bible, and then he prayed (Neh. 8:6). We must pray before we read God’s word, that the Holy Spirit will open our minds to give us understanding. When Ezra prayed, the people gave a royal reception to God’s word. They lifted up their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen! So be it! We believe! We truly believe!” Then they fell on their knees and worshiped the Lord in great reverence, with their faces to the ground.

God was with these people. God is always with us and works in us both to will and to do his good pleasure. When we see God by faith in his holy word, we shall humble ourselves and be obedient. When Isaiah saw the glory of God, he cried, “Woe to me! I am finished! I am unclean!” (Isa. 6:5). When Peter saw Jesus as God, he said, “Depart from me. I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). The publican exclaimed, “Have mercy upon me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13). And Paul said, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Ezra and others read from the Bible loud enough so that all the people could hear and understand. They also explained the word to them. If we do not understand what we are reading and hearing in the preaching, it does us no good. People can go to a Bible-believing church their whole lives; it doesn’t mean a thing, if they remained arrogant and stubborn. May God help us all this Lord’s day to become humble!

Satan desires to keep us ignorant of the Bible. There is a great famine in the land—a famine of the bread of the word of God (Amos 8:11–12). Today, there are only a few ministers of the gospel who are pious and preach expository sermons so that their people may understand and respond to it. (PGM) And we are told that husbands, wives, and all children who were able to understand, came to hear the word. They came family by family, clan by clan.

This is revival! Christianity demands understanding of the gospel. The Lord says in Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” There is no understanding in paganism, as Isaiah tells us: “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn” (Isa. 8:19–20). Idols are demons: “They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand” (Isa. 44:18).

So the Lord puts emphasis on understanding his word. In Nehemiah 8:2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 12 the Hebrew word bēn (ביו) appears, which means “to understand.” Christianity is a religion of understanding the revelation God has given us by the Holy Spirit.

We must understand God’s word. Jesus said, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path” (Matt. 13:19). Ask yourself: Do you understand what you are hearing when the word is preached? Jesus then said, “But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matt. 13:23; cf. Acts 8:30–31).

We need the public reading of the word, as Ezra and the priests were doing. Paul instructed Timothy, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching ” (1 Tim. 4:13). That is what we do in this church.

How long did the people listen to the word? Notice, all the people, including the children, were standing. How long did they listen? It was not thirty minutes or one hour. They listened to the word for six hours, from six in the morning until noon, standing all the time.

Friends, this is revival. When the Holy Spirit is moving, people are motivated to hear from God. They are hungering and thirsting for God’s word. They are not tired or bored or asleep. They are standing and listening eagerly. The Hebrew text says, “The ears of all the people were to the Book of the Law” (Neh. 8:3). And as they listened, God’s word cleansed and refreshed them. Jesus said, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15:3). Have you felt cleansing in your innermost being as you read the Bible and believed its truth?

In Nehemiah 8, the Book of the Law is referred to ten times. We are reminded of the lost Book that was found by Hilkiah the high priest in the days of Josiah. In times of prosperity and apostasy, people neglect the Bible. But when revival comes, the Bible will be found, read, preached, and understood. Read about the great revival brought about by the Bible in the days of Josiah (2 Kings 22–23).

Then, beginning on the second day of the month to the twenty-third day of the month, only the heads of the families came to be taught by Pastor Ezra. They came to learn so that they, in turn, could systematically teach their wives and children in their daily family worship. When revival comes, family life will blossom and flourish, and people will begin to think and act biblically—not according to philosophy or psychology. So we read, “Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God” (Neh. 8:18). For many days these men studied the Bible. And on the twenty-fourth day, all the people and their leaders came together again to hear the word of God. They had another six-hour long service: three hours of hearing the word and three hours of repentance and confession (Neh. 9:1–3).

2. Repentance and Confession

The word preached brings about change in those who hear and understand the will of the Lord of the covenant. So in Nehemiah 9, we see the people experiencing godly sorrow for their sins, which the word exposed to them. Jesus said, “When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). Where there is conviction of sin, there is the Holy Spirit working. In Acts 2:37 we read, “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” People will not inquire what they must do to be saved unless the Holy Spirit is working in them. Otherwise, they remain stubborn, and their hearts are like stone.

Paul speaks about godly sorrow that “brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret” (2 Cor. 7:10). When God grants us true repentance, not only will we own our sin but we will also forsake it, and our lives will be transformed, as Paul describes: “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need” (Eph. 4:28).

The people fasted, wore sackcloth, and put dust on their heads. They were deeply sorry for their sins and the sins of their fathers. They confessed their sins for three hours, not in a general way, but specifically, so that they could forsake them, and receive forgiveness and covenant blessings from the gracious, covenant Lord, of whom we read in Exodus 34: “Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation” (vv. 5–7).

Even on the first day, the word moved these people to deep sorrow for their sins: “Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, ‘This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law” (Neh. 8:9). Are you weeping over your sins? Or are you so arrogant that you are getting ready to stone the preacher who is preaching the word of God to you? People have done that throughout history. They cannot get to God, but they can get to the pastor. Jesus himself said that God’s own people killed the prophets (Matt. 23:29–39).

All the people wept. There is a time for weeping and grief. Where is weeping in the Bible-believing churches of today? Yes, there is entertainment and superficial jubilation. But there is no weeping and no true repentance. Joy that we experience without first weeping in repentance is a carnal joy. God’s law exposes our sins, so that we may weep, confess, and forsake our sins. Only then can we truly rejoice in the gospel.

3. Renewing the Covenant

In Nehemiah 9:38, the people said, “In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.” So all the holy people, all those who had separated themselves from the surrounding pagan toxic culture, made a binding covenant to obey the covenant Lord’s decrees: “The rest of the people—priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighboring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and daughters who are able to understand—all these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the LORD our Lord” (Neh. 10:28–29). Then they listed what they were promising to do (Neh. 10:30–39), signed it, and sealed it.

This is revival. They bound themselves with a curse and a self-maledictory oath: “If we do not love and obey God, let us be destroyed.” Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you ” (Matt. 28:19–20). Obedience is not optional. Why are people in misery and depression? It is because they don’t obey God.

All the men and women and all their children renewed the covenant in God’s presence. What a great revival! May God help us to do the same in this new year! What were the things they agreed to do?

1. Separation. They promised to have no relationship with paganism, with the toxic culture surrounding them (Neh. 10:30). Intermarriage with pagans was a frequently recurring sin in the history of Israel. But here the people were saying, “We promise to not tolerate syncretism. We will not participate in the sin of King Solomon. We are a holy people. We shall not mix with the toxic culture of the pagans around us.” The Lord had given clear directions concerning this long ago: “Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’S anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you” (Deut. 7:3–4). And this directive applies to us today as well. If a Christian marries, he must marryen tô kuriô, in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39). A Christian cannot marry an unbeliever. And when the other person says he or she is a Christian, don’t simply believe it. Check it out clearly and see whether that person is a Christian or not. You will be a fool if you marry a person who is a pagan at heart.
2. Sabbath-keeping. They covenanted to keeping the Sabbath (Neh. 10:31). The Westminster Shorter Catechism, questions 58 through 62, tell us about Sabbath worship. So the people said, “We will worship the Lord. We will proclaim his word and help the needy on the Lord’s Day.” Before the resurrection of Christ, the Sabbath was Saturday; since Christ’s resurrection, we worship on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. In other words, we don’t worship money by working on the Sabbath; we worship the Lord.
3. Support of worship. They promised to support God’s worship by supporting the temple (Neh. 10:32–33). Today, we fulfill this by supporting our local church. So they paid the tax, which was half a shekel, according to the Pentateuch. But because of poverty, it appears the tax rate was reduced to one-third of shekel from those twenty years old and up annually. And in the New Testament, we see Jesus paying two drachmas for the temple service (Matt. 17:24–27). They promised also to bring all the tithes into the storehouse (Neh. 10:37–38). Worship costs money. Many people think it costs nothing, although everything else in the world costs money. In Malachi we read, “‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it’” (Mal. 3:10). The Holy Spirit causes us to do this. And when the Holy Spirit puts that desire into our hearts, we will do this. And God blesses our obedience: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap” (Luke 6:38). Paul tells us, “Don’t you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:13–14). And, finally, they said, “We will not neglect the house of God” (Neh. 10:39).

4. Enjoy Covenant Blessings

The Bible says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33, KJV). Read Deuteronomy 28:1–14 and note the blessings that follow obedience to God’s commands. In Romans 14:17 we read, “The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Let me ask you: Do you have joy in the Holy Ghost? Or are you miserable, wretched, complaining, and depressed?

Nehemiah told the people, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). In the Hebrew, it is, “The joy of the Lord is your high tower, your fortress, your bulwark, your safety.” The Holy Spirit gives us joy in the midst of all suffering and pain. It is the joy of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus himself, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11). It is Christ’s own joy. He accomplished it. He produced this salvation by his work on the cross; now he gives joy and peace to his people.

In Nehemiah 8 we read about joy (v. 10); great joy (v. 12); and very great joy (v. 17). So let me ask you again: Do you have joy? Do you have great joy? Do you have very great joy? Do you have Christ’s joy?

Sin and guilt depress us. Most depression is due to the guilt of sin. Like an iron girder, guilt rests on one’s soul and depresses it. And man, in himself, has no cure for sin. No pagan religion, no politician, no scientist, no philosopher, and not even all the gold of this world can solve the depressing sin problem. But the triune God of the Scriptures solved it. God’s Son became man. His name is Jesus, for he alone shall save all his people from their sins, guilt, death, and hell. The joy that Jesus gives is our security.

Sin depressed Cain, who refused to believe in God (Gen. 4). God said to him, “Do what is right, and you will rejoice.” Cain refused and killed his brother. Then he lived a depressed life away from God’s presence. So also will all people who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ. They will live lives of loneliness, depression, and misery.

Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). He himself solved our sin problem. That is the essence of Christianity. Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. What must we do to be saved? Do what is right. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You shall be saved forever, and rejoice forever with joy unspeakable and full of glory.