A first year old got over to congratulate
my brother Detwiler, Mrs. Detwiler, this afternoon.
I told him the truth.
I'm really glad that that brother came to
Durham.
He and Lester Wilson and a lot of
others.
I think there are many in this room
tonight that would say amen to that.
Brothers really had a fruitful life.
And I know that the scripture tells us
that there are some brethren that you can
call beloved brethren.
Not all brethren are beloved brethren.
I believe Brother Detwiler is a beloved brother.
I certainly appreciate the Lord sending him to
us and he's been a blessing in my
life.
It's a great joy to be able to
share this afternoon notes of thanksgiving to he
and his wife.
I'd like for us tonight to look at
Nehemiah 9.
Last Sunday night we considered the value of
the word of God.
And as you remember, Ezra, at the request
of the people, he went in and he
got the book of the law and he
brought it out, and they read the word
of God from the morning hour right up
until noon.
About five hours, perhaps, of reading the word
of God.
And there were men there that were able
to expound the word.
There were those there that could explain the
meaning of the word, because the people heard
and they understood, and that's so important.
The value of God's word for God's people,
we needed it.
They needed it, and it speaks of a
revival that was breaking out.
Here are people that have been brought back
from years of captivity, and a place that
they could enjoy, a place of safety.
Nehemiah had constructed the walls, and this was
just the capstone to that ministry that Ezra
had carried out.
And now the people are able to safely,
and with some sense of security, they could
resume without any hindrance their worship of their
God.
We need to reflect from time to time
and thank God for the very pleasant circumstances
in which we're not harassed.
There may be a little hostility around when
you witness for the Lord, but ordinarily we
can go about our business from day to
day with little or no opposition from anyone,
little hostility.
So sometimes you have to be denied the
privilege before you're really appreciated.
And I talked last Sunday night about dusty
Bibles.
We talked about people that have been denied
the privilege of reading the word of God.
That dear woman in Russia, Christian, that had
not had her hands upon the word of
God in thirty years.
And when she got it in her hand,
what did she do?
She read it day and night.
She wouldn't put it down.
It meant so much to her.
How do we value the word of God?
We've always had it.
We've never been denied the privilege of reading
it and studying it, meeting together, and reaping
all of the value of hearing God's word.
Tonight, the part that really complements the reading
of the word of God, of course, is
that response that comes from our hearts when
we speak to God in prayer.
And they are kept in balance in the
passage.
And I'd like for us to think about
that tonight and what is said in this
ninth chapter.
I'm not going to read the entire chapter.
I'll just read perhaps the first three or
four verses, and then we'll take it up
as we go along.
Reading from verse 1 in chapter 9, Now
in the twenty-and-fourth day of this
month the children of Israel were assembled with
fasting and with sackclothes and earth upon them.
And the seed of Israel separated themselves from
all strangers and stood and confessed their sins
and the iniquities of their fathers.
And they stood up in their faith and
read in the book of the law of
the Lord their God one fourth part of
the day, and another fourth part they confessed
and worshiped the Lord their God.
Then stood up upon the stairs of the
Levites, Joshua, Benaiah, Cadmeel, Shabaniah, Bunai, Sherubbiah, Danai,
and Shanani, and cried with a loud voice
unto the Lord their God.
I'm going to let that suffice because that
sets the stage again for what we want
to consider.
Now, Nehemiah realized a vital truth as we
pointed out last week.
Just because they were behind the protection of
those walls that he had so miraculously constructed
in a period of fifty-two days, mind
you, and that's still a miracle to me.
When you think about reassembling all those stones
and re-erecting that wall, putting it up
in place, that's a miracle.
You recognize that there's something divine behind all
of this.
You can see the omnipotent hand of God
working, but he recognized something else.
They needed more than just that wall around
them, that physical wall that represented in the
minds of many security and safety.
They needed more than that.
They needed the word of God.
They needed to reacquaint themselves with the greatness
of the God that they served.
And no time is ill spent that we
spend before God reacquainting ourselves with how great
he is and how wonderful he is.
Ezra, I believe, is the one that read,
and with the help and aid of these
other brethren that helped him, I think the
meaning or the sense of the word was
explained as he went along.
People benefited from hearing the word of God.
Now we read in the opening of this
ninth chapter of a posture of prayer.
Now that the reading of the word has
taken place, and in this instance an equal
time was devoted to the reading of the
scriptures.
Three hours were devoted to reading the word
of God, and now there's going to be
a time of praise and thanksgiving.
I'm told that this is one of the
longest prayers in the word of God.
Perhaps Ezra was a leader in offering up
this prayer.
Now as you go along, I couldn't help
but think about this when I read this
this time.
Sometimes we accuse brethren of, he prayed from
Genesis to Revelation, and all in between.
You know, he just seemed to go on
and on.
Well, sometimes prayers can be kind of difficult
to follow.
But I've always appreciated a prayer when I
hear the brethren pray, and they make mention
of the fact that our God is a
great God.
And the very fact that God has done
many wonderful things for us.
I don't mind hearing brethren reviewing their prayers,
what the Lord has done for us.
You know, it's reassuring.
And in this case, as we look at
the passage, the chapter, we discover that there
are many things that are reviewed that relate
to the past.
I think the first thing that is mentioned
as we go along is, of course, it
deals with their past history.
And of course, Abraham would be very prominent
in this, and that's where it starts.
But the very fact that there was a
recognition that prayer was an important part of
their relationship with God.
You know, our relationship with God is something
that deals with that vertical aspect of our
Christian experience.
In which heart is lifted heavenward.
We make known to him all of the
joy, all of the expressions of worship and
adoration that we feel for him because of
what he's done for us.
I think it was J.
Edgar Hoover, a few years ago, at least
I think this is a quote from something
he said, in which he referred to our
need today as a nation to bow our
hearts and our knee in the presence of
God.
Well, we just celebrated a day of prayer
in our nation.
I don't know how many participated in that.
I don't know how many really took that
seriously.
Personally, I think for it to be truly
effective, I think everything ought to shut down.
Every factory ought to close its door and
tell its workers to go home.
This is a day of prayer for our
nation.
Well, Mr. Hoover said one of the most
spectacular things that anyone could ever see or
behold would be a nation of people on
their knees before God.
He recognized more power in this than even
atomic bombs.
Now, you know, that's something to think about.
We say we believe in prayer.
We've got a little motto on the wall
at home.
Prayer changes things.
Well, you know, it's such a tremendous benefit
to pray, to unburden the heart to God.
Prayer is, well, it's the poor man's means
of releasing all of those inhibitions and those
things that he has within his soul.
He doesn't have to go to the psychiatrist
and lie down on the couch and whisper
and tell all those things that he has
in his heart that may be burdening him
and causing him problems.
We go to our God and we tell
him what's in these hearts and minds.
He brings joy.
He brings relief.
He brings healing.
And here are a people.
And there's this recognition, we need the help
of our God.
And so Ezra and the others, perhaps, that
took part in this time of prayer began
to review all that God meant to them.
Now, this is indeed a time of rebuilding
for the nation of Israel.
They had to reestablish what they were spiritually
and politically.
And it required that the people be consciously
aware that our greatness is involved primarily in
our relationship to our God.
After all, it was a nation that the
spiritual aspects of it were.
There was an altar always in the center
of their gatherings.
They met their God at an altar.
And there was this recognition that his greatness
had been revealed to them in many, many
wonderful ways down through the years that they
had been dealing with him.
You always sometimes have to have a time
of preparation when you're preparing for special meetings.
And, you know, I think the success sometimes
of meetings is measured in terms of, are
God's people prepared?
Have sins been confessed?
Are hearts rejoicing in what God has done
for them?
Revival starts within our own hearts.
And, you know, revival can come, and if
you're not in a spirit of revival, it
could come and go and you'd never know
anything about it.
So in a sense, the groundwork must be
laid, preparation must be made, in order that
the people's hearts might be right toward God.
And it starts out, as they assemble, with
fasting.
Now, fasting means a lot of things to
a lot of people.
I suppose the most common understanding of fasting
is abstinence from food.
But really, the true biblical concept of fasting
is that we deprive ourselves of anything that
would dull our senses and hinder in any
way to that sensitive inner witness of the
Spirit of God in touch with our God.
Anything that represents a threat to divine communion
and fellowship, communication with God, it must be
put aside.
And in this instance, first of all, there
was fasting.
They wanted to have every sense acutely in
tune with what they were going to hear.
It takes preparation.
You know, you go eat a big meal,
and you go sit down in a nice,
comfortable chair.
You don't pick up the Word of God
and start reading it.
If you do, slumber length, you're gone.
You know how food and so many things
that we engage in, how it dulls our
senses and sometimes prevents us from really having
something precious come into our lives through the
Word of God.
These people, first there was fasting, setting aside
everything that would be a hindrance.
Sackcloth always bespeaks of humbling oneself, self-humiliation.
They weren't adorning themselves for a big party.
They were being prepared within the inner man
for a contact with God.
So all that sackcloth outwardly represented, it was
to be an experience within the heart and
soul of these people.
They separated themselves from the strangers and stood
and confessed their sins.
You know, recently we've been talking about church
priorities, and the first thing, of course, is
contact in worship and praise of our God.
The preeminent place that the Lord Jesus should
enjoy in each of our lives comes before
anything else, before any service that we ever
render.
Let there first be a bending of the
knee and an opening of the heart in
worship and praise of our God.
Secondly, of course, in order of priority is
an attention and a care for God's people.
And sometimes we have to think in terms
of if we're going to set the stage
properly for an attitude of receiving any sort
of message from God, we must really isolate
ourselves from everyone, in a sense.
We must closet ourselves.
It doesn't mean you have to go into
a closet, but preparation of mind and heart
so that we're receptive to the voice of
our God.
In this instance, there's been a lot of
intermingling of the people of God with the
nations that were around them.
It really created problems for them.
So often when drastic measures were taken, it
meant separating families.
A man might have to put away his
wife and those children.
It really sometimes required that severe measures be
taken to separate themselves from the strangers, those
that would represent anything in the way of
a friend.
Because after all, all of these strange alliances
that had been made along the way, and
so many other things that God found so
grievous in His Son.
So here they take measures of separating themselves
from strangers, and they stood and confessed their
sins.
And I mentioned this morning, and I believe
that if there's one thing today that we
must do as God's people, we've got to
start being honest with God about sin in
our lives.
This thing of Christians tolerating sin in their
hearts and lies and going on as if
nothing, well, it doesn't really matter.
I can conceal it so easily.
No one even detects that there's unconfessed sin
in my life.
And it breathes the Spirit of God, rubs
us of any power in our witness for
the Lord Jesus.
It must be dealt with.
Sin must be confessed.
And this is certainly set before us in
this passage.
They confess their sins, and the iniquities of
their fathers.
There's going to be a calling to mind
of the things that happened in the past
that can be as an example to them,
a reminder to them, as it should be
to us.
And before we close, I'd like for us
to look at a New Testament passage that,
in a sense, the Apostle Paul reviews for
us, things that we should observe.
Someone has said, the man that only lives
in the present and never takes into account
the past is a man with a very
short-sighted view of what living is all
about.
We should learn from the past.
We should learn from history.
Someone as well said, the one thing that
we learn from history is that we don't
learn from what has happened, but all the
things that could be avoided, the grief that
we could spare ourselves if we would just
look carefully and seriously at what has happened
in the lives of others.
And in a sense, we could circumvent all
of that problem.
But here is preparation for the people of
God in their approach to God.
Now, as an assembly, there must be repentance
and a confession of sin.
Now, the word of God, again, was read
for three hours.
There again, I think rather than just reading,
I believe that there was proper exposition given
of what was being read.
A true sense of what was being read
was given to the people.
They heard, and they were thrilled again.
I don't know if it's happened to you,
but Saturday mornings when we gather together, the
brethren, and we pray together, Wednesday nights when
we gather for prayer, you know, if there's
been preparation within my own heart, because God
has spoken to my heart.
I read in, I think it was Brother
Ironside's book, Only a Mind, which he makes
a comment about this balance that we see
here.
Reading the word of God, and then a
time of prayer.
You find someone, and all he does is
just pull her over the book.
He might provide you with a theoretical Christianity,
or a brand of Christianity that's just theoretical.
Oh brother, he knows the verse, he knows
the passage, he can take you right to
it.
But if there's not a proper place given
in that man's life, or that woman's life,
to prayer and meditation upon the word of
God, it can be so cold.
It can be lacking in that one ingredient
that sometimes you're aware of when someone opens
up a passage and you read it.
And you know there's been prayerful meditation over
the word when it's presented.
By the same token, if someone only devotes
himself to prayer, and he has no time
for the word of God, he doesn't sense
the value and the importance of reading and
studying the word of God.
With all of the emphasis that's placed in
the scriptures upon reading and studying God's word,
the psalmist, wherewith all shall a young man
cleanse his father, words sewed up in our
hearts, becoming a part of us.
Men and women that are just filled with
the word of God.
But it's when someone says, well I spend
all of my time in communion, you've got
to be careful.
First thing you know there's become something rather
mystical about all of that.
First thing you know you might find yourself
wandering off, becoming rather wishy-washy as far
as the importance that you place upon things
in the word of God that are of
prime importance, that must be balanced.
Reading the word of God, meditation upon it,
studying it, and then a time of opening
the heart and soul before the Lord and
offering up praise and thanksgiving to him.
Hear God speak to us, and then let
us speak to God, and let there be
balance as we do this.
The word that is studied and prayed over
by how precious it can be to the
soul, the beauty about it is you don't
forget it as easily as you do, as
if you just scan through something and you
read it and then it's gone.
But if you spend that quiet time in
meditation and thought and prayer and it becomes
precious to you.
You know, you must have had this happen
to you, but I can recall many experiences
when I would read just a verse or
a passage, and my acquaintance with verses like
Galatians 2.20, and that's just one, but
many other passages I can recall, I can
tell you when I read that.
It was years ago.
And God impressed that on my mind, on
my heart, and I've never forgotten.
It wouldn't take anything for it.
I just regret that I hadn't had more
of those experiences.
In reading God's precious word, in which there
was such an experience, and knowing his presence
and revealing what that passage was all about,
it just thrilled your soul.
And yet, very often we deprive ourselves of
those wonderful experiences.
Well, these first four verses or so deal
with this preparation of heart.
Now, the people are prepared, and now this
prayer starts.
It's a long prayer, but it's filled with
a lot of things that would be of
interest to those Israelites.
They were going to be reminded of some
things.
First thing comes to mind, this call of
Abraham.
Wouldn't those Israelites perk up their ears when
these brethren begin to pray and praise God
for what he had done in calling Abraham?
Thou art the Lord, the God who didst
choose Abraham.
And of course, there would perhaps be a
sense of pride that would well up in
their souls.
We are God's chosen people.
He has chosen us out of all the
nations of the earth, and with a view
of blessing us, we have our father Abraham.
And then verses 9 through 11, I noted,
took into account that deliverance from Egypt.
You show me the Israelite that knows anything
about his heritage that can't tell you about
that time of deliverance out of Egypt.
Brother, this is in the prayer.
They're praying.
So when you hear brethren get up and
they begin to praise and thank God for
what he did, they're just calling to mind
what God has done for them, and how
it's thrilled them, and how it's blessed them.
So don't be critical of the brethren when
they pray.
If you don't think they're praying scripturally, pray
for them.
And if you don't think those prayers are
really doing what it should do for God's
people, warming their hearts and promoting praise and
worship among God's people, well, tell them about
it.
But if the prayer was precious, nothing wrong
with saying, Brother, your prayer warmed my heart.
It blessed me to hear you pray and
praise God and bring to remembrance all of
those things that have been such a blessing
in your life.
It did me good.
Nothing wrong with that.
But here is a review of what happened
in that wonderful deliverance from Egypt.
And there's just one thought that I bring
before you.
It's at the latter part of the tenth
verse.
It says, So didst thou get thee a
name, as it is this day.
You know, something happened as a result of
that deliverance.
Those Egyptians never forgot the God of the
Israelites.
They'll never forget him.
Down in Egypt, those Israelites that left here,
it was their God that delivered them.
God in a sense.
He got for himself a name.
That name may bespeak of fierceness and wrath
and judgment, but he got for himself a
name.
For the Israelites, he's our great deliverer.
He is the one that delivered us out
of Egypt.
And we're not about to forget it.
We want each one of you here today
to be reminded that the great God that
we serve, he brought us up out of
Egypt.
You see, this is laying the groundwork for
revival.
They know this is true.
No doubt, many of these passages have been
read in their hearings.
They've done a review of these things.
These people are standing on their feet.
There's anticipation of what's going to be said
next.
Right on the heels of this, promises that
were given in that wilderness experience.
You know, if they thought back to those
40 years in which God's people were recipients
of all of that loving providential care that
he provided for 40 years, in which he
watched over them just as tenderly and carefully
as he could.
Although there were many occasions of murmuring and
complaining and falling into idolatry and so many
things that grieve the Lord, and so often
his hand of judgment and chastening was upon
them, yet there were provisions that were made
in that wilderness experience.
You know, that's still what we're talking about.
Each one of us in our Christian experience
can recount many instances in which God provided
for us.
And brother, there's not anything wrong in recalling
to mind the goodness of God to us.
A reminder of this.
Ever keep it before us.
Great things for us he has done.
I'm persuaded that he'd do even greater things
for us sometimes if we were just prepared
to receive it.
It takes preparation of heart, again, to really
be in an attitude of heart where these
things can be appreciated.
So Ezra, as he prays, provisions in the
wilderness.
And then toward the end of the chapter,
once they'd gone into the land, I think
about the conquest and the conquering of Canaan
and coming into that promised land, something no
doubt that they'd just been looking forward to,
something that they had right within their grasp
just a short time after they left Egypt
because of a lack of faith, because of
weakness on their part.
And on listening to that strange voice, no
doubt Satan-inspired men that said, No, we
can't go in, they're giants in the land,
ignoring Caleb and Joshua.
There it was, it was theirs.
God had promised it.
But now 40 years they went a-wandering,
but now they've come in, and God has
seen to it that they're going to find
a refuge in this place.
They took strong cities.
There's one thing about all this to me
that always just stands out.
You know, without God's help, they couldn't have
done any of it.
I think of that experience at Ai, when
there was sin.
That sin had to be judged.
And you know, that sin was judged and
it was dealt with.
Then there are no problems.
You know, that's always spoken to me.
If there is sin in our midst, if
there's sin in my heart, you know, the
blessing of God cannot flow through this little
life of mine.
This little life of mine cannot be a
channel of blessing to others when there's sin
in my life.
This assembly, the Church of God in the
world today, cannot be a blessing to the
people that we should be reaching if there's
unconfessed sin.
You just can't tolerate sin in your midst
and have the blessing of God.
And this, they were reminded of.
They were disobedient.
They rebelled.
They did so many things that when you
review it and think of it, you say
that is despicable conduct.
The ingratitude that these people have shown toward
this great God that has done so much
for them, and yet the one that is
praising God, the one that is speaking to
the Lord so that the people of God
can hear, there is a review of all
that he had done.
There wasn't any hiding of those areas of
their life in which they had failed.
There wasn't any glossing over of periods in
which you say that's a shame.
Let's don't mention that.
Let's don't make any mention of those things
that we've done that we're ashamed of.
No, bring it all out in the open.
Tell the whole story.
We were not faithful.
And finally, in the closing verses, I believe
that Ezra makes a plea for mercy and
pity upon these people.
Do you ever get a sense or a
feeling of your own weakness or part?
And you know the one that knows himself
best is the one that knows just how
weak he is.
Without him you can't do anything, says the
word of God.
But I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.
And so here, as this brother leads in
prayer, and he makes his plea to God,
the first thing he says, You are our
God.
You are our God.
You are the great and the mighty and
the terrible God.
And when you make a promise, you keep
your promise.
And if there's a covenant made with you,
you keep that covenant.
How unlike us.
We are a covenant-breaking people.
We make vows that we don't keep.
Yet he remains faithful and true.
But this is a time in which, regardless
of all of our failures and our weaknesses
in the past, God has mercy upon us.
We know what we are.
We're surveying our past.
We know that we've got a miserable failure
so many times.
But, oh God, have mercy upon us.
We're your people.
Well, it's a stirring thing to think of
this occasion and God's people assembled, and in
a sense, this prayer, this petition that included
praise and thanksgiving and confession and notes of
repentance, intercession of God's people.
But as I read this, I thought, the
thing that they're being reminded of is this,
that unlearned from the past, it had no
value for them.
And when we come to the New Testament,
and we pick up our Bibles, and we
turn to a passage like 1 Corinthians chapter
10, we read these words.
Paul says, Now, these things were our examples
to the intent we should not lust after
evil things, as they also lusted.
That's the first thing, and there are five
things mentioned here in which these people were
guilty of.
Paul reviews the Israelite history, how all these
things happened unto them as an example, and
they were written for our instructions, for you
and me.
This thing relates to us.
This is not something we just read tonight
and we've amused ourselves with for a few
minutes and said, you know, it's great, nice
to hear about that revival among God's people.
No.
We've got to bring this thing down to
this present time.
We've got to learn something from this.
We should put into practice in our own
lives all of the value that's associated with
these lessons.
That's what Paul says.
He says, first of all, We should not
lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
And you can go to Numbers 11, and
it concerns itself with that provision that God
had made for Israel in the manna.
But they didn't want just the manna.
They wanted meat.
They wanted something over and beyond what God
had provided.
Listen, doesn't God know what's best for us?
He knew what was best for them, but
they wanted something else.
Isn't that just like us?
That's our nature.
Are you satisfied with what God has prepared
and provided for you?
Oh, yes, I am, but, but, and then
there's something else that we think would be
better for us than that which God has
provided.
You know, well, that's a lack of faith
on our part.
That's a lack of trust and commitment to
our God to do nothing but that which
is best for us.
They lusted.
Verse 7 says there was idolatry.
They became an idolatrous people.
Exodus 32, that golden calf, and all that
was associated with that.
And Paul could remind and warn those Corinthians,
Listen, you know what idolatry is.
You've been associated with all of these evil
things that prevail in your culture, and many
of you have bowed the knee to an
idol.
I'm reminding you, look what happened to the
people of God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, how many idols
are there in our lives?
I tell you, we have to search our
hearts.
We have to be careful.
There must be that daily review of what
we're doing with our lives and what we're
putting the importance upon.
And those things may have become precious and
dear to our hearts that are nothing more
than idols that we're tolerating in our lives.
And then there was immorality.
And certainly the Corinthians knew something about this.
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of
them committed and fell in one day, 23
,000 people in one day.
The account in Joshua, in Numbers 25, says
that there were 23,000.
But in one day, 23,000 fell of
immorality.
Verse 9 says, And there was unbelief, and
you remember those fiery serpents that came upon
them to punish them for their sin of
unbelief.
And then there was murmuring and complaining, as
mentioned in verse 10.
And you know, when you think about poor
and the judgment that fell upon him and
his brethren.
And I believe the people, in a sense,
they murmured about this.
Lord, you shouldn't have done that.
Shouldn't have done that.
Who are we to tell God what to
do?
He made us.
He is the sovereign God of the universe.
And would we raise our puny voices in
one moment of murmuring against God?
He is the sovereign God of the universe.
He made us.
We owe our very existence and being to
Him.
But all of these were warnings that were
given.
They relate to Israel's history.
I believe God has an interest in all
of the affairs of men.
Do we recognize that He sovereignly rules in
the affairs of men?
Do we recognize that He would sovereignly rule
and reign in our own hearts?
That's the bottom line.
We say He raises up and He brings
down.
He does.
What is He doing in this little bitty
life of mine?
I may think I'm too insignificant.
I don't really matter in the eye of
God.
I'm not that important.
I shouldn't even attach that much importance to
it.
That's the work of Satan.
Haven't we had brought to our attention by
our brother Lynn Sheridan and in our meditations
on Wednesday night, we're members of the body.
And God counts every member in that body
as to be precious in His sight because
it was precious to Him and because it
was purchased with the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus.
We're members of that body.
I thank God that Ezra, as he closes
out this prayer in which there's been a
recounting of all the things that they were
familiar with as a people who might have
had to leave their minds refreshed.
He brought them back to a position where
he says, I know that you are a
covenant-making God.
We want to covenant before thee today that
we shall serve thee faithfully.
We'll offer up faithful service to thee.
We'll have undivided hearts for thee.
How often do God's people do that as
a collective group?
There's some of these things that, as a
local assembly, we shall welcome these things.
We're so reluctant to do anything that represents
a lifting of our voices as one in
which we say, we have sinned against thee,
O God, but we want to come back.
This is a time of confession.
This is a time of rededication of our
lives, and we want to serve thee in
a way that is acceptable, a way that
brings pleasure to you.
This is what this is all about.
Reading the word of God in prayer, always
with a purpose of drawing the people of
God back into a pure and undefiled relationship
with their God.
When we assemble together, brothers and sisters in
Christ, it's for a purpose.
It should be profitable.
Not just another meeting.
There should be some profit in this time
that we gather together.
Fellowship together around the person of the Lord
Jesus.
He says we're two or three gathered together
in my name, there are mine in this.
Is he here tonight?
Praise God, he is.
Do we recognize it?
Are we addressing ourselves at this time to
him, to our God?
Is there this spirit within us of rededication,
willing to enter into a covenant with him,
in which we say, Oh God, I'll seek
to obey thee more perfectly.
I will seek to serve thee more faithfully
than I ever have before.
Brothers, if there's another time when you do
that, it won't happen.
If there's never any experience of saying, Oh
Lord, I've been unfaithful.
But I want to be fruitful.
I want to obey thee more perfectly.
I want to follow in your ways.
And I want to serve you faithfully in
every way that I can.
If we don't have a time when we
do this, when will it ever happen?
We can just go on in that little
rut that we're in.
Playing church.
Coming together.
Having our small talk sometimes about the things
of God.
But no real depth.
No real meaning.
No real purpose for coming together.
Let God revive us within our soul.
Let the Spirit of God speak to us
tonight.
And say, Lord, if there needs to be
anything set right in my heart, I want
it set right tonight.
If there's anything between me and a fellow
believer, if there's any sin in my life,
I want to confess it.
I want to forsake it.
Then tonight's meeting could be profitable.
Be a blessing.
Let's pray.
O Father in heaven, we do bow in
our presence again and give thanks to thee
for the Lord Jesus.
And Lord, we occupy a position tonight as
believers in that wonderful body of the Lord
Jesus.
We don't deserve this.
But you never ask us to be occupied
with our undeservance.
We just see this place of blessings that
we occupy in Christ.
Oh, we praise thee and thank thee tonight
that in him things have been so beautiful
for our lives.
Blessed are the people that are assembled here.
Grant, we pray thee, that we shall learn
from these examples, from these things in the
past that can be so profitable to us.
Grant, we pray thee, as thy people gather
in this place and around the world, there
will be wonderful divine thoughts of thy greatness
and your wonderful provision in the person of
the Lord Jesus.
To the end, we might serve thee better.
We might know thee better.
We might worship and praise thee better.
For this we ask in the name of
the Lord Jesus.
Our brother Les has a hymn for us,
and then the service will be over.