Okay, but this portion will begin in Nehemiah chapter, Ezra chapter seven. I sent a man on a mission, again, he's in water, that's why I'm sort of here. Here, waiting, okay, I guess we can start reading. Ezra chapter seven, verse 10 says, "'For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments." We'll read that verse again.
"'For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments." Thank you, brother. Now, Ezra chapter eight. Ezra chapter eight says, "'And the people gathered themselves together as one man in the street that was before the Watergate, and spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought 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 that in before the street, that was before the Watergate from the morning until midday. Before men and women and those that could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra described, stood upon a pulpit of wood, which he had made for the purpose.
And beside him stood Matathiah, Shema, Anaya, Yeriah, Heylkiah, Massiah, on his right hand, and on his left hand, Padaya, Miss Giel, Melkiah, Haschum, Hasch, Badana, Zachariah, and Massalum. 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, the great God.
And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with the lifting up of their hands. And they bowed their heads, and they worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And Yeshua and Bani, and Shabbai, and Jamin, and Akok, and Shabbat, Adai, Jazabh, and Shabbat, Hanon, and Pahliah, and the Levites caused the people to understand the law, and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading.
And Nehemiah, which is a tarshithath, and Ezra the priest, and the scribe, and the Levites, the tath, the people, said to all the people, this day is holy to 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 fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them, for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy to our Lord, neither be you sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites still all the people saying, hold your peace for the day is holy, neither be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and send to portions, and make great mirth because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
And on the second day, we're gathered together, the chief fathers of the people of the priests, and the Levites in the scribes, even to understand the words of the law, for they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in boats in the feast of the seventh month, that they should publish and proclaim in their cities, and Jerusalem, saying, go forth to the mountain, bring all of branches and pine branches and mirtel branches and palm branches and branches of victories, to make booths as it is written. So the people went forth and brought them, and made themselves booths, everyone, upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and the street of the Watergate, and the street of the gate of Ephraim, and all the congregation of them, that would come out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths for since the days of Yeshua, or Joshua, the Son of Nunn, to that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day by day, and upon the first day of the last, and upon the first day to 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 the solemn assembly, according to the manner.
The Lord will bless to us the reading of his holy word. We start off this portion in chapter seven, and verse 10, Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the God, the law of the Lord, to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. I've entitled this a Christian conference. Usually at Easter time, there's always a conference, a Christian conference when people gathered together.
When I first became a Christian, I grew up in Prince Edward Island, and when I was a young man, I moved out to Vancouver, British Columbia, and it was a man invited me out to hear the gospel, and I went out to hear the gospel. It was not because I wanted to hear the gospel was just to meet someone from back home. When you're 4,000 miles away from home, it's nice to see family again. My wife is with us this morning, and my favorite mother, Nosh, she's beside her there.
We had planned on trying to make it more international. We had four students we're supposed to be bringing. We have a German student, a Korean student, a Japanese, and a Mexican girl, and my daughter was from El Salvador. That's where she was born, and we dropped her off at the airport yesterday.
Isn't heaven going to be wonderful? Isn't heaven going to be wonderful? It says from every tribe and nation and tongue and language, and we will be together praising God, from whom all blessing flows. God has redeemed us, and it is going to be wonderful.
I want to think about this as a Christian conference. If it was a conference, it was announced. Usually they would announce the place, and they would announce the time. Well, I want to think about this as a Christian conference when the first day of the seventh month, if we were looking at that, that would be July 1st, okay?
And who were the preachers? Well, it was Ezra, and there was 13 other ministering brothers who were there to preach the Word of God. So there was a multitude of ministry. It's not just one guy coming, and you're listening to one guy for a whole weekend.
No, there's 14 different brothers who will be preaching. And what was the purpose for the exaltation of God? This morning, as we were sitting here in the breaking of bread, we had the opportunity to give praise onto him that loved us, and gave himself or us. He that washed us from our sins in his own blood.
And now we have eternity to talk about that. You know, a Christian conference, it should correct our path, because sometimes we're doing things that we ought not to be doing. It's not true. And then it should clear our mind.
Sometimes there's questions. Brother Dave mentioned that about coming on Friday night, or even the general meeting. He said, sometimes there's things in our mind. We say, why are you doing it this way?
Why are you doing this? Because every church you go to, like I lived in El Salvador for 10 years, and before I lived there, I used to go, we used to go showing gospel movies. We used to go out into the boonies, where in the country where there would only be one light bulb in the whole town, you know? And we were showing a gospel movie, and then we would preach after the gospel movie, well I have seen all kinds of churches.
You would not believe the things that I've seen going on in churches, you know what they call worship and so on. But we were there to tell people that Christ, Jesus, come into the world to save sinners. I want to ask you a question. Who likes to be challenged?
Who likes to be challenged? You know, like Dave said, we're a thin crowd this morning. You know, like a diver to look it on the scale, looking over my shoulder and see the scale. He said, brother, I think you better be trying to be a little bit more thinner than you come back here.
Well, I wouldn't like that. Why? Because being on a diet, it's hard to sacrifice, right? We're trying to lose weight and things like that.
Well, last year I remember there were some people and they were putting on a Bible challenge, read the Bible in 40 days. I said, that's insane. Have you ever read the Bible in 40 days? No.
Would you like to? I don't think you would, you know? Like, okay. And none of us would.
And so, you know, I'm thinking, that's nuts. Well, anyway, it was December, you know, at the end of the year, you know, and everybody January 1st everybody says, okay, we have to start reading our Bible from the beginning to the end. So there's a page that I belong to. I don't have my normal Bible here today.
And I like to make notes on my Bible. I have tons and tons and notes. And I have actually four Bibles. I'm getting old, so I'm on my last Bible.
And I'm copying all these notes into my Bible, you know? And I can take like a couple of hours just copying notes from one, from those four Bibles into one chapter. Like it's very time consuming. So anyway, I'm on this page and this girl, her name is Kat.
That's a good name to start off with. You know where the story's going, right? And she says, you know, there's something called a 30 day Bible shred. No, I don't even like the name of that shred, you know?
Okay, so you have to read the Bible in 30 days. She says, I just did it. A girl just read the Bible in 30 days. Well, if she can read in 30 days, I can read in 30 days, right?
Okay, so I started reading the Bible January 1st. And I'm going along in a pretty good clip, you know? And I'm on these guys that don't, that always start out good every year. And I don't make it.
I'm always, you know, I do a lot of Bible reading because I'm a preacher. But all of a sudden I, you know, I'm lost there, you know? So anyway, I read the Bible in 28 days. 28 days.
So I go back to that page. I'm thinking, I'm gonna post something on there, you know? What did she say? I read it in 24 days.
I said, okay, you win. I'm not gonna challenge you anymore. Okay, but imagine that 28 days. Okay, so I didn't follow her schedule, you know?
And anyway, you can look it up online on Facebook. The Bible shred, 30 day Bible shred. Okay, so I said, that was pretty good. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to, I looked at, I have a chronological Bible that I bought years ago and I never ever, I read parts of it and so on.
So I said, I'm gonna start that. And I looked at it at 1600 pages. Okay, so who's pretty good at math? You know, 1600, by 20 pages a day, how many is that?
That's 80 days. So this week I will be finishing the Bible, my chronological Bible in 80 days. Okay, after that, I decided, okay, well, this is the year of the book. I am challenging you brothers.
I'm challenging you sisters. Do something that you have never done before. Okay, I'm not gonna tell you to read the Bible in 80 days or 40 days or 30 days or 28 days. But I'm going to read my Spanish Bible now.
Okay, speak Spanish. Okay, but it's a little bit more of a challenge, a second language, right? So I plan on reading the next one in 75 days. Okay, I just divide it by the number of pages.
It's an easy number because I don't wanna read 13 pages a day, it's too hard to keep track of. So I went 15 pages in this here Bible. So I plan on doing that. And then after that, then I plan on going back to my good old King James Bible.
And I'm not going to read that through. So that will be four times through the Bible this year. Okay, we need to be challenged. I was looking at all the men here.
And there's a brother over there against the wall. I remember him, you were at the men's retreat, right? Over in in manual Bible camp, right? No, you haven't been there.
Okay, that's a challenge. Okay, in September, in September, I want you to come. Okay, Dave's coming over. Okay, because we had COVID, do you mean?
And there's a bunch of men. There's going to be probably about 80, 90 men. Okay, my Filipino friend. Okay, okay, a bunch 80 men and singing.
The singing is incredible, isn't it, Dave? It's just wonderful. You know, there's a lot of men here and men, you guys could lift their roof. You know, especially, you guys are quiet.
I'm surprised how quiet this place here was, you know? But when you get there and you get all these men that are there and they're men of power and they're singing the phrases and it's really, really encouraging. So the first thing I want to think about is when we get to this here, Book of Nehemiah. We know about Nehemiah was building the walls, okay?
And the whole idea of building the walls was to keep the enemies of God outside the city of God. That was what it was all about. Okay, so here we have Nehemiah. In the book of Nehemiah, you don't see Ezra one time in the first seven chapters.
And then when we get to chapter eight, what do we see? We see Nehemiah preaching the word of God. Now how did that all happen? Would it all happen back here in chapter seven?
In verse 10, it says, for Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, to seek it. So first of all, you have to know it. You have to read it. You have to understand it.
And then he says to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, so to obey it. And then number three, and to teach it in Israel, its statutes and its judgments. So it's one thing to read the word of God yourself. But God is looking for a man this morning.
God is looking for a woman this morning. Do you wanna be used of God? Is that why you're here? You wanna be used of God?
Or you just come along to play church? I don't believe that. I believe that God is speaking to you and he wants you to be used of God. He wants to raise people up in his very place.
Brother David introduced me to warn and never met Warren before. But him and I, we have a passion. We have a passion to go out into the streets and the highways and preach the gospel in the open air. I lived in El Salvador for 10 years.
I've been going down there for about 40 years. Preaching the gospel, 1983 was the first time I went down. So that would be 39 years. In my little town of 15,000 people, I've preached the gospel in 35 different street corners around.
How many people got saved? We're not gonna know until we get to eternity. But they shall know that there was a prophet among them. The people of Halifax, the people of dark mouth, and that need to know that there was a prophet among them.
Will you be God's prophet? Will you be God's prophet? He wants to use you for months and months. As I was back in PI, I said, I want to go in the open air and I want to preach the gospel.
But I'm afraid, I'm timid. I want to go and the Lord keeps on putting it on my heart. And finally, I said to the brothers, I said, I'm going out and somebody, and then I went out. And I started doing it and then it was a young couple.
23 years of age, they phoned me. I heard that you were out preaching the gospel. You want to go with you? A couple of 23 years of age.
So then there was another guy from British Columbia. He had never been out and he said, the Lord has been laying this on my heart for a long time. He said, I'd like to go to a bound shaking. And I remember the first time when I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, I got saved in March 19th, 1976.
I went down to Gastown and I was there. And the brothers were preaching the gospel in the open air. And my knees were banging together. And I wasn't even preaching.
I was just standing there watching them. I was afraid of, I was down in Gastown in the sort of the dangerous part of town. But God put a fire in my heart to tell others to proclaim the good news. Yes, Christ Jesus, come into the world to save sinners.
Are you saved? Aren't you glad that somebody left the pleasure and the convenience of home? I was living in British Columbia. There was a man left, Prince Edward Island, 4,000 miles.
He went out to British Columbia. He left his family, his wife and kids behind. And he was there sleeping in somebody else's bed. They were having awesome meetings.
After I got saved, they said, listen, we want you to come with us. Where? Downstairs. And I walked into this little room and there was a bunch of men on their knees and round in a circle.
And they were praying. They were praying for different names. When's the last time we've done that? Have you got a burden for prayer?
Maybe before the next time you have a meeting, you say, listen, I think there's a little library over there. Maybe two or three of them might go in there and start praying. Listen, we saw a young couple come in here. We don't know anything about them.
We're going to pray for them that the Spirit of God would work in that person's heart, that they might get saved. There's no greater joy than to have eternal life to know that your sins are forgiven. So chapter eight, Nehemiah. It says, and all the people gathered themselves together.
When did this happen? This is after the captivity. Israel starts out with King Saul. And then we have King David.
And then we have King Solomon. And then we have the kingdom. It's divided. We have the northern king, 10 tribes to the north, and two to the south, and they're divided.
And then they're because of the rebelliousness against God. They've been carrying away to Assyria. And then later, the Babylonians come down and got the rest of them down in Judah, and they brought them. So now we have 70 years later, they've been brought back to Jerusalem.
And they start restoring the city, the temple of God. And we have Ezra that's there. And what does it say? And the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the Watergate.
And they spoke to Ezra the scry to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord commanded to Israel. Yesterday I was sitting in the hotel room, and I got a phone call. And there's a man in P.I. He says, listen, my preachers are dropping like flies over here.
He says, could you come over and preach? I said, sorry, I'm over here in Halifax now. A lot of people are sick. I had COVID 10 days ago, 11, 12 days ago.
Now my wife had it a few days before that. She was very generous and gave it to me. And we know it was very nice of her. My daughter had it before that and my son, you know?
So we're living in times. We're living in perilous times. But you know, there's people that God is asking you to be prepared. I talked to a young man up in the gospel.
And I said to him, I said, Mark, I said, I want you to do something for me. I'm giving you a challenge. You know, I like to challenge people. I said, I want you to prepare a message every week.
Take a chapter. Start in Matthew chapter one or whatever book you want. I said, prepare a message in chapter one. And then next week, chapter two, next week, chapter three.
Because in the Brethren Assembly, so we belong to, we believe in the priesthood of our believers, and that all men have this privilege to preach the Word of God. But you know what happens? They do not prepare until someone asks them to speak. And maybe they ask you to speak now.
You're speaking this week. And then you don't get asked to speak for four more months. So you don't prepare one message. How can God use you if you're not doing anything?
Ezra prepared his heart to seek the Lord. So do you know, Mark says, Mark says, OK, I took your advice when I'm doing what you said. And you know what happened? This church, they phoned me and asked me to speak.
He said, I'm ready. I got the message. God can't use you unless you're prepared. Ezra prepared his heart.
So now the people ask him to bring the book. And he's a prepared man. God uses men. God uses women.
Do you remember the story about Jameliot? The five missionary murders that were killed down in the jungles of Ecuador? What happened when those men died? God used two women.
When the rest of the men were afraid to go in, God used two women at the Lord that touched their hearts. And they went into the people that had killed their husbands. That's the kind of God we serve. Not afraid of adversity.
Not afraid of the enemies of God. With God at your back and Christ in your heart by faith. And this is what Ezra did. He stands up.
He opens the book of God before them. And they spoke to Ezra, the scribe, bring the book. That's what we want, men and women of the book. Ezra, what I said, I'm suffering spiritual burnout.
Don't you know what I've been doing? For the last 12 years, I've been working my heart, my fingers to the bone, and the enemies of God around. I'm just, there's nobody here to help me. It says in 1st Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles, 29 and 34, it says, but the priests were too few.
Spiritual leadership. Spiritual leadership is what men do behind the scenes when no one is watching. They are reading. They are praying.
They are studying. Sometimes they're learning new songs. I play the guitar. I love to play the guitar.
I have a family band. We play together. When I lived in El Salvador, I had to learn all these songs in a language I didn't understand and try to lead them. That's even worse, especially when you're not a good singer to start off with.
That makes it even worse still. But God will take whatever we offer him. Sometimes it's not our ability, but it is our availability. Are you available for God this morning?
Verse 2, Ezra brought 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. So it says, men and women and all that could hear. I see a little baby on the ground. Caleb and Christie were in every meeting that ever happened in a glacial Berea in El Salvador.
They never missed prime meeting. They never missed the breaking of bread. They never missed Bible study. I'll tell you one thing.
It's a lot better having some kids in the background crying and whimpering and then have one of these dead churches with no kids in it. And that's something, eh? It's a blessing. Count your blessings.
Name them one by one. You know, the nice thing is the young couples nowadays, they're having children right away. We're going to be grandads. My 24-year-old son, Caleb, and his wife, Taylor.
They're having a baby. So we're pretty excited about that, too. And then in verse 3, it says, he read there in in the street. It was before the Watergate from the morning until midday.
They were not only attentive. They were not only attending. It says, all the years of the people were attentive to the book of the law. So they were not just attending that gathering, but they were paying attention to the word of God.
They tell us from that word, morning. That was 6 o'clock in the morning. What time do meetings start this morning, 930? And it goes till midday, two and a half hours.
And we're saying, man, there was a couple of old ladies. And they said, man, that guy sure preaches for a long time. And the other one says, no, it just seems like it preaches for a long time. Pretty hard to listen to.
But imagine coming with a desire for the word of God. I've never been in countries like that. They talk about Africa and they say that people walk for miles. I have missionary friends over there.
And the people walk for miles. They get to a conference. And they're there. And the guys are preaching till midnight.
And they get to the command. And I'm preaching here in Canada. What do you hear? Zip, zip.
Two minutes after. People are headed for the door, right? And myself, I'm on these guys. I like to watch the clock.
And I don't like to keep people late. So don't worry about that. It says, verse 4, in Ezra stood upon a pulpit of wood which made for the purpose. One thing I like to do whenever I go to any church, and I don't care where it is, I like to sit in the first two or three rows.
And the reason I do that is because I don't like distractions. I have a attention span like Mosquito, I think. And I like to be close because of anything that's happening behind, I'm looking here, and I'm looking there, and I'm looking. So I want to be focused.
I'm there for the purpose. I want to hear the word of God. And I want God speaking to me. So they had that purpose.
They lifted it. They had a pulpit and it was lifted up. And there was no distractions. And in verse 5, it says, in Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above the people.
It was a while back. I was in this meeting, and there was a man spoke. And after the meeting was over, one of the brothers who were there, and he said, yeah, that was pretty good. It wasn't it.
I said, yeah, I said, did you notice something though? Something very interesting. He said, no, what was that? I said, the man didn't open the Bible.
Could you imagine being in an assembly? And the man didn't open the Bible? I'm not talking about the Pentecostal church down the road or the Baptist church down the road. I'm talking about one of our assemblies.
Not only did the man not open the Bible. The listeners didn't even notice. Were they attentive? Were they there being entertained?
There's another reason why we opened the Bible when we're preaching. And I like to try to help young men with this. When you're opening the Bible, people say, well, I want to real but catchy illustration to get their attention. And then they start off and they say, her story.
And you know, you're falling along, falling along. And after a while, it's like, what was he talking about? And then like 15 minutes later, he will, and he'll be making references, Bible references, using his illustration. Because he's been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks, if he's been preparing a message.
You know, we understand that. But you know what the problem is? I tell people, let them get on the bus. Open the Bible, read the Bible so that they're in the same line of train of thought that you are.
If you're in Nehemiah, you want to let them read that passage so that they're seeing that story. And all the people gathered together in front of that pulpit. And there's a great big crowd of people, men and women, boys and girls, all that could understand. And they're standing and then he's reading.
And then they're standing. And when he reads, it says, they said, amen. Amen. When's the last time he said amen?
Don't worry, brother. Nobody's going to accuse you guys of being Pentecostal. What does amen mean? It means so be it.
It means I agree. Sometimes in some of the translations just translated, verily, verily, I say unto you, truly, truly, amen. But if you don't agree, I don't want you to say amen. Like I said, when I lived in El Salvador, I was in some strange places.
Because when I first went there, I couldn't speak Spanish. And we would just go and we would show movies. And then we'd have a translator. And we'd preach the gospel and so on.
But after I moved there to live there, then we established an assembly and we preached the gospel orderly. And we believe the things that you teach here. We believe in remembering the Lord on a weekly basis. We believe in the priesthood of all believers.
Verse 6 says, Ezra blessed the Lord the great God. Were you paying attention to the words in the songs today? I believe the brothers and sisters here were very careful with the song choices. Sometimes my kids would be listening to some songs.
And well, they write me off anyway, because I listen to bluegrass music. So there's where I am. But I say, some of the songs, and you'll hear the song repeated the words over and over and over after about eight times. I started to lose interest in that song, right?
Like keep on repeating the word over and over and over again. Some songs are repeated. If you go through some of the songs, you'll see that phrase. His Lord is going to his mercy and doors forever and so on.
But that's a theme that's going on in that song. We're not talking about vain repetitions. Ezra blessed the Lord. Does our preaching exalt Christ?
Ezra had a knowledge of the Almighty God. He wasn't preaching about me. When I lived in El Salvador, there was a guy come over to me. And he said to me, is your church Christo centrico?
And I think you can understand enough of that Spanish to understand that, right? Is your church Christ-centered? I said, wow, that's pretty good. I like that.
Yes, our church is Christ-centered. We preach Christ and Him crucified. He is the only Savior of sinners. The Bible says there's one media to bring God and man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom in due time.
Christ died for the ungodly. We make much of Christ. We exalt Him. Ezra, blessed the Lord, verse 6, the great God.
And all the people answered amen with lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads. And they worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. You know, that word worship.
The word worship is a very interesting word, trying to explain in our New Testament. Some of the expressions means to kiss towards. It's like yesterday when we dropped our daughter off at the airport. What do parents do?
They will blow a kiss. I'm sending my love towards you. But also, we have this expression that they bow down. Sometimes you see all these mosques.
I remember one time when I lived in Vancouver, I was an insurance agent. I had to go to this here. Somebody wanted an insurance quote on a mosque. It was like a meeting room.
And I went in there and I'm looking, where's all the chairs? There wasn't one chair in the whole place. And then after a while, after seeing some movies, I understood why, because the people are all kneeling down and they've got their face toward the ground. But they're repeating ritualistic prayers, as I did, as I grew up as a Roman Catholic boy in Prince of Rhode Island.
And Hail Mary, full of grace. And you'd go through and you'd repeat these things all over and over and over again. The other interesting thing is, when we went to confession on Friday night, we would go to confession. And we would go inside that box.
And then we would kneel down there. And we'd say these prayers to our best, me father, for I have sinned and I confess to the mighty God and so on. And then, you know what's my punishment he used to do? He used to say, I want you to go outside and I want you to kneel down and say, five hour fathers and five Hail Marys.
And I said, when I became it, I was thinking, that's your punishment? Praying to God is your punishment? Do people ever think about these things? You know, like the guy inside that box, like he doesn't think I'm gonna punish you really bad.
I'm gonna make you say, 10 Hail Marys. And then there's a big list of names. I'm not gonna say those ones again. I was a killer again, two there the first time.
Verse eight. This is another thing that we have to give practice to. Whenever we are preaching, these are preachers' tips for young men. Whenever you're preaching and you have a passage, you should be reading the portion over and over again so that you can pronounce all the words and you have a flow of it and read the verses out loud so that you have an understanding.
And then it says, they read in the book of the law distinctly and they gave the sense. So this is what we would call expositional preaching. They explained the words. What does the word redemption mean?
Well, we say that means to buy back. How do you know that means to buy back? Because I heard a preacher say it once. Okay, that's good.
That means you were paying attention. And how about forgiveness? When you ever hear that Bible, Brother Davis reading in Psalm 107 this morning, I think it's Psalm 103. There's a Psalm there that says about God taking our sins.
And as far as the East is from the West, he has removed our sins from us. Isn't that an awesome thing when you think about the idea of forgiveness? And as parents, I remember when I was a little boy, you know, one of the favorite saints that mothers used to use back in those days in the 60s, you know, just wait till your dad gets home. And you have this picture of your dad as a big mean.
He'd pour dad doesn't even know what's going on. Now he has to go home and punish some kids, you know? He was pretty good at it too. But that's not what our father in heaven is like.
Our God in heaven, he knows, he knows everything. You know the good part about that? He knows all your sins, past, present, and even future. The good thing about that is he didn't miss one of them.
When he punished his son in Calvary's cross. All of your sins were laid upon them. Jesus bore them on the tree. And now, if we believe that he'd paid for my sins, we can have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
He caused them to understand the reading. In verse nine, we saw that there was a shared ministry in Nehemiah and Ezra, in all the Levites, taught the people of God. And then do you know what they said? They said, don't mourn.
For all the people stood there weeping when they heard the words of the law. Why were they weeping? Because they realized they were disobedient. When's the last time you wept when you read the word of God?
Do you ever say, Lord, I'm sorry? Lord, I want a fresh start. Lord, I've been failing. I haven't been reading.
I haven't been praying. I haven't been witnessing. God wants to bring us along in our faith. And Ezra and Nehemiah and the Levites, they weren't trying to make the people feel bad.
In verse 10, we have that famous verse. It says, the joy of the Lord is your strength. You have that joy of the Lord. And then in the last section of this portion, we have the results.
So the first verse we read was Ezra chapter seven and verse 10. And that was before the conference. And that was all about preparation. And then verses one to 15, we have Ezra at the conference.
And that was Ezra preaching. And then in the last couple of verses in this chapter, it says, the people went forth and they brought them, made themselves both. This was one of the teaching that they were supposed to do. Kids would sort of love this type of thing, wouldn't they?
You go outside in your backyard and you take all these hair branches and you make this little shelter and everybody's sleeping outside under the stars. And what was this a reminder of? That God had brought them safely through the wilderness and brought them into the promised land. And we have a lot to look forward to us.
Just in closing, I want to think about this idea. I started off with giving you a challenge. Back in the days of the Reformation, Martin Luther, when he was reading the Bible, that was the first big revival was he was reading the Bible and he discovered this verse, the just shall live by faith. And there was a revival when the gospel was discovered.
You want to read an interesting story just by, it's an interesting story, Henry Alene. Somebody know the name Henry Alene, Henry Alene, it's A-L-L-I-N-E. But they called him the wit field of Nova Scotia. Okay, on the street preacher's page you'll find about him.
But he was an incredible guy. He preached on horseback all down through the Annapolis Valley down from Yarmotha, all the way up into Nova Scotia. Imagine this, you mean like for me to get in a car and drive all the way down to Yarmotha. That's a long drive.
Well, he was on horseback and he'd be sitting there in his horseback and preaching the gospel and it was a great revival. You think that that's possible today in 2022? We'll never know unless we get out and do it. So that was the first, it was the rediscovering, the truth of the salvation was by faith.
And then it was a man by the name of John Wesley. He was preaching in the churches over in England and they didn't want to hear his preaching. So you know what he did? He went out and he went into the fields and he started preaching to the crowds and he went to the coal mines and he was the one who was famous for open air preaching and there was a revival of that.
And then later the brethren came along and they brought back the restoration of the truth. They said, listen, we believe in the plurality of ministry that is not just one man standing up here in the pulpit that the pulpit is opened to the masses, to the men of the assembly. And there was a centrality of the remembrance of the Lord's Supper every first day of the week that they were getting together. And we should not ever lose sight of this because this is a blessed privilege that we'll be able to do this.
And then they also brought back the fact that the Lord is coming back. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming back. And we should be praying for the people in Ukraine, the suffering that's going on in this world that's happening right now. And we want to reach out while people are still still able to hear the word of God.
How many Father, we just ask your blessing now. Father as we work through passages of the word of God, Father, help us to be stirred up in our own hearts and to not lose sight that there's a heaven to gain, that there's a hell to shun and that the souls of men and women are at stake. Lives are going to spend eternity either in heaven or in hell. And Father, just help us to rescue people.
Father, we think of that story about the little boy that was on the beach. And there was a man driving by and he just saw this little boy running along and picking stuff up and throwing it in the water. And he didn't know what it was. So he walked out of the beach.
And here was the little boy that was throwing in some starfish into the water because he rubbed drying out on the sand. And he looked and he saw the thousands and thousands. And he said to the little boy, you can't rescue them all yourself. And he said, no, but I'm going to rescue as many as I can.
And then the old man, he took off his shoes. And he went in there and he was helping the little boy throw them into the water. And Father, help us to realize that the souls of men, women are far more valuable than starfish. Father, we give you thanks now as we spend this time together in your word.
In Jesus' name. Amen.