Sermon Tone Analysis

Nehemiah 9:1-38

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen Caswell © 2000

The Greatness Of God /-- Thomas Adams/

 

"It was reported of Alanus, that he promised his audience that next Sunday he would expound more clearly on the Trinity, and to make plain the mystery.

While he was studying the point by the seaside, he spied a boy very busy with a little spoon trudging often between the sea and a small hole he had dug in the ground.

Alanus asked him what he was doing.

"The boy answered, 'I intend to bring all the sea into this pit.' "Alanus replied, 'Why do you attempt such impossibilities, and waste your time?'

The boy answered, 'So do you, Alanus.

I will as likely bring all the sea into this hole as you bring all the knowledge of the Trinity into your head.

They are equally possible.

We have begun together, we shall finish together.

But of the two endeavors, mine is more hopeful.'

Jehovah God is the main subject of chapter 9. Who He is, what He does for His people, and what His people must do for Him.

Chapter 9 highlights three things about God.

 

*I.

The Greatness of God       II.

The Goodness of God      III.

The Grace of God*

 

/Today we will only look at/   The Greatness of God

 

/a.

Israel Worshipped God/

 

*Nehemiah 9:3* /And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for one-fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God./

God’s greatness is seen in the fact that /He receives our worship./

True worship involves many elements/: hearing the Scriptures, praising God, praying, confessing sin, /and/ separating ourselves/ from that which displeases God.

Each of these elements is recorded in these verses.

Worship

 

Ÿ  Worship is pulling our affections off our idols and putting them on God.

/-- Tim Keller/

Ÿ  Worship is seeing what God is worth and giving him what he's worth.

/-- Tim Keller/

/Ÿ  /Worship helps people see God in the midst of their troubled lives.

/-- Paul Anderson/

 

1.

Hearing The Scriptures - God Speaks To Us

 

*Nehemiah 9:3a* /And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for one-fourth of the day;/

/ /

The Feast of Tabernacles had ended, but the people lingered to hear more of the Word of God.

Worship involves the Word of God, for the Word of God reveals the God of the Word.

A.W. Tozer said: /The essence of idolatry/, /is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him/.

The better we know the Scriptures and respond to them, the better we will know God and become like Him.

Israel was chosen to receive His Law and to know His will.

Any worship service that ignores the Scriptures will not receive the blessing of God./ /*1 Timothy 4:13 says:*/ Till I come give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

/

God's Word must have a central position in our worship.

Through the Word, God speaks to us for comfort, conviction, exhortation and edification.

Paul commanded Timothy to teach the Word because only this is profitable.

*2 Timothy 4:2-3* /Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; /*Brethren*/, /*those times are with us today!

*

/ /

The Bones of Belief

 

A clergyman took a seat in a dining car on a train traveling along the Hudson River.

Opposite him was an atheist who, seeing his clerical collar, started a discussion.

"I see you are a clergyman."

"Yes," came the reply.

"I am a minister of the gospel."

"I suppose you believe the Bible."

The clergyman, orthodox in his views, responded, "I certainly do believe the Bible to be the Word of God." "But aren't there things in the Bible you can't explain?"

With humility the minister answered, "Yes, there are places in the Bible too hard for me to understand."

With an air of triumph as though he had cornered the preacher, the atheist asked, "Well, what do you do then?"

Unruffled, the clergyman went on eating his dinner -- which happened to be Hudson shad, a tasty fish but noted for its bony structure.

Looking up, he said, "Sir, I do just the same as when eating this shad.

When I come to the bones, I put them to the side of the plate and go on enjoying my lunch.

I leave the bones for some fool to choke on.

2.

Confession Of Sin - We Speak To God

 

*Nehemiah 9:1-3* /Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with *fasting*, in sackcloth, and with dust on their heads.

Then those of Israelite lineage separated themselves from all foreigners; and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for one-fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God./

/ /

Feasting had turned to fasting as the Word brought conviction and people started confessing their sins.

In most churches today, a six-hour service — three hours of preaching and three hours of praying — would probably result in some requests for resignations; but to the Jewish people in that day, it was the beginning of a new life for them and their city.

Today we live in the age of fast-food, and this mentality has invaded our churches.

We fervently sing, */Take Time to Be Holy/*, /but are we willing to pay the price to do it?

/

 

The people took time to */confess/* their sins and seek God’s forgiveness.

The annual Day of Atonement was past, but the worshipers knew that they needed constant cleansing and renewal from the Lord.

We must not major on self-examination to the extent that we start ignoring the Lord, but we must be honest in our dealings with Him.

Whenever you see sin or failure in your life, immediately look by faith to Christ and seek His forgiveness; /and keep on looking to Him./

The more you look at yourself, the more discouraged you will become.

Focus on His perfection's, not your own imperfections./

/Confession is sadly lacking today.

We usually try to hide our sin from God.

The Apostle John wrote about this in* 1 John 1:8-9:* /If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we *confess* our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

/

The word */confess/* o&mologew means */to say the same thing as/*.

It means that we agree with God about our sins.

We come clean and don't try to hide them.

God's Word reveals our sin.

This is why it is so important to read His Word.

The Bible tells us what sin is so that we can avoid it, but if we should stumble it also convicts us so that we can confess it.

/ /

The People of Israel named their sins individually as the Word convicted them.

They were sincere about their sin.

They were truly sorry and repented of it.

This can be seen by their actions.

They fasted and clothed themselves with sackcloth and ashes.

This is a sign of true humility as they lowered themselves into the dust.

They confessed their own sins and the sins of their fathers.

/Why did they confess their fathers sins?/

By doing this they were acknowledging the justice of God's punishment upon Israel.

They also claimed back any ground Satan may have gained against them through these sins.

* *

*Exodus 34:6-7* *says:* /And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.

/The consequences of the sins we commit spread to our children.

This is why it is so important for us to confess our sins, lest they become a snare to our children.

Only as we confess our sin can God cancel them out through Christ's blood!

Finally, the people separated themselves from the world as they drew near to the Lord.

/Separation without devotion to the Lord becomes isolation, but devotion without separation is hypocrisy./

The nation of Israel was chosen by God to be a special people, separated from the pagan nations around them.