This episode takes us on a journey through the historical and spiritual landscape of Nehemiah’s mission to lead Jerusalem back to its former glory. Amidst the physical reconstruction of the city’s walls, a much greater repair takes root—a spiritual revival, sparked by the reading of God’s Word. Dr. John Kyle reflects on how the Israelites’ collective weeping signified a heartfelt recognition of their sinful state, reminiscent of spiritual leprosy. Through Pastor Kyle’s vivid storytelling, listeners are invited to confront their own spiritual complacency and encouraged to seek God’s unwavering grace and redemption.
Welcome to Expository Truths, where we exalt Christ by bringing clarity of truth through the scriptures with Dr. John Kyle, pastor of Faith Community Church in Vacaville. As Christians, we are called to know the truth and be able to proclaim it. We can know the truth when we know the word of God, which is precise, without error, powerful and effective for both salvation and spiritual growth. Let’s join Pastor Kyle as he takes us verse by verse through the book of Nehemiah, an incredible book showing us how God sovereignly used the faithfulness of Nehemiah to lead the people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in the midst of many mighty and powerful enemies.
SPEAKER 01 :
Please turn with me in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 9 through 12. Nehemiah 8, 9 through 12. Now remember, Nehemiah was a faithful Jewish man who was living in the capital city of the Persian Empire, Shushan, also known as Susa. And Nehemiah was a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. As we saw, the good hand of God was on Nehemiah, and that good hand of God led Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem, where the people were in great distress and reproach, and where the walls of the city were still in ruins. And look, God used Nehemiah to lead the people in rebuilding the wall in 52 days. An absolutely amazing work of the Lord God Almighty. Okay, so now what? Do more to help the city return to its former glory, of course, which Nehemiah will continue to do. But even more, help to bring spiritual reformation for the people who have been living in mediocrity and rebellion for way too long. The good news is that the wall rebuilding project lit a fire under the people. And now at the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of Tishri, which is the seventh month in 444 BC, as the people are gathered together as one man to celebrate in Jerusalem, there is indeed a spiritual hunger in the people. They are eager and they are ready. And they had no problem with Ezra reading God’s word to them for hours. In fact, they loved it. as Ezra read it, and as others helped to properly understand it. Today’s passage gives the people’s response to that most amazing event. Let’s look, verse 9. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn nor weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites quieted all the people saying, be still for the day is holy. Do not be grieved. Then all the people went their way to eat and drink, to send portions and rejoice greatly because they understood the words that were declared to them. Now here in today’s passage we can observe four facts, the first being this, that the law of God was read and it was explained to all the people, and that’s just a review from what we looked at last week. Remember that? This is a notched up feast of trumpets. As the wall has just been finished, and as all the people are gathered together at the water gate in Jerusalem, right there in the Kidron Valley, perhaps as many as 50,000 people. And look, they’re all eager to celebrate the feast. They are eager to hear from God. So Ezra brought out the scroll of the law of God, the first five books of the Old Testament, and then he began reading it. And then the Levites, men from the tribe of Levi, who served in the temple, some of them who were also priests, they moved among the people, and they helped them understand what was being read, and that went on for six hours. Six hours! Six hours! And the people are hungry to hear it, which is a great change. I mean, I’m sure that some, if not many of these people had heard the Bible before as parents would teach their children and as the priests and the Levites most certainly engaged in some sort of public biblical instruction. That said, this day was different. The people came here hungry. The people came here eager. And the sustained… reading of the Word of God under the powerful influence of the Spirit of God turned the hearts of these people in an amazing way. I mean, it must have felt as though many of them were hearing the Word of God for the very first time because it impacted them in a profound way. The Scriptures searched them and tried them and found them lacking and they knew it, which is a wonderful thing. And it’s not just one person who felt this conviction. No, this was a corporate thing. And as the hours went on, amazingly, the passion and the conviction of the people didn’t fade away. No, no, it even grew more intense. And that certainly is more than mere emotion. God is clearly up to something. Clearly. We see the people’s response. What was that? They wept. That’s very interesting. Again, remember this is a corporate thing. All the people wept. Can you picture that? Thousands of people there gathered together to celebrate. And after reading and explaining God’s powerful word, all the people are now weeping. The word for weeping means to bewail, to lament, to cry freely, to cry intensely, and to cry profusely. So this wasn’t just a little bit of crying going on here. No, this wasn’t just a few tears. No, this was the real deal. I mean, these people were weeping loud, intense, weeping from the bottom of their heart from all the people. Why? Why? I mean, that’s a good question to ask, right? I mean, why did all these people weep like this? Because this isn’t normal. And while I’ve seen weeping at funerals, I’ve never seen it at a celebration and from so many thousands of people together at the same time. So why did all the people weep? Here’s why. Because they were sorrowful over their sin. As the law was read and explained to the people, it was as if God Himself was speaking to them and reading their hearts. Perhaps Ezra was reading the Ten Commandments, and as he was reading, the people were really examining themselves like they never have done before. You shall have no other gods before me. Uh-oh! I put all kinds of gods before him! All the time. Myself, my children, my comfort, my sleep, my job, my money. I’m in trouble. Perhaps they made it to Deuteronomy 6.5 that says, Then you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Oh no, I’ve never really done that. Not ever. Yeah, I say I love Him, but I’ve never really loved Him like that. I love my sin more than that. Because I choose sin over pleasing Him so much of the time. I revel in mediocrity when He deserves so much more from me. I go through the spiritual motions and I don’t remotely live worthy of being His saved child. Uh-oh. Perhaps that was it. So as Ezra read the law of God, there was much that could have brought on the guilt and the shame and the conviction. And while most people can read God’s Word and pass over, letting it really penetrate into their hearts, this time it was different. As all the people really examined themselves and were hypersensitive to the Word of God. And so they responded accordingly with intense weeping. See, they saw themselves as sinners. They saw themselves as lawbreakers. And they didn’t just feel the guilt. But they had the stark realization that their sin rendered them liable to God’s just punishment. And so they began to weep openly and freely. They wept collectively with sobs of remorse and with a sense of unworthiness. Rightly so. You say, really? Rightly so, John? Really? Yes. Really? Yes. Rightly so. And you know what? We today should feel the same way. We should feel the same way. Look, you are a wretched, horrible, dirty, offensive sinner. And you fully deserve to go to hell for all eternity because of that fact. And you know what? So do I. And that’s true for all of us. In Mark 1, Jesus healed a man who was full of leprosy. Remember that? Leprosy was disgusting. It smelled. It consumed a person. It overtook a person. And eventually, it killed the person. We’re all spiritual lepers. Leprosy vividly illustrates the terrible effects of sin in the lives of every person. As John MacArthur said, like leprosy, sin infects the whole person and it’s ugly, loathsome, corrupting, contaminating, alienating, and incurable by man. Lepers in ancient Israel were vivid object lessons of sin. That’s right. And so again, we’re all spiritual lepers and Christ is the only cure. Leprosy was sick and disgusting. Sin is sick and disgusting. Leprosy consumed a person. Sin consumes a person. Leprosy banishes someone from the people. Sin banishes you from God. Leprosy turns someone into a walking corpse. Sin does the same thing to us spiritually. As Kent Hughes said, Sin’s leprosy runs from the soles of our feet to the crowns of our heads so that we are wholly unclean. And he’s absolutely right. That is us, spiritually speaking. Even more, just as Israel was often portrayed as a harlot, so too are we all spiritual harlots. Look, many of the prophets referred to the Israelites as playing the harlot. And that terminology was used in reference to the many instances where the Israelites denied the one true God and instead they sought after all kinds of other false gods. What sin? As Jeremiah 3.6 says, Have you seen what backsiding Israel has done? She’s gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree and there played the harlot. And I, the Lord, said, after she has done all these things, I say, return to me. but she did not return. Or as Ezekiel 23, 19 says, speaking of Judah and Jerusalem, yet she multiplied her harlotry in calling to remembrance the days of her youth where she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. And that spiritual harlotry continued to happen in Israel and in Judah. God’s people, think about this, God’s people turning against God and following after fake false gods who are no gods at all. Spiritual harlots. Spiritual prostitutes. That’s us. We’re the same as them. We do the same thing much too often. Shameless, sinful, rebellious, mediocre, lazy, idolatrous. You know it’s true. It’s true. We certainly aren’t what God desires us to be. We sin all the time. In Ezekiel 16, we get a good picture of reality. It’s a picture of Israel, and it’s also a picture of us. The picture goes like this, referring specifically to Israel, but definitely applying to us today. Ezekiel 16, 4. On the day you were born, your navel cord was not cut. nor were you washed in water to cleanse you. You were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No, I pitied you to do any of these things for you to have compassion on you, but you were thrown out into the open field when you yourself were loathed on the day that you were born. What a vivid picture. What a horrible picture. It gets worse. Verse 6. And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, live. Yes, I said to you in your blood, live. I made you thrive like a plant in the field and you grew, matured and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. So that’s what God did for Israel. God rescued Israel. He gave life when certain death was their reality. And God made Israel thrive. His passion for Israel is reflected in the two-fold declaration. In your blood live. So that’s what God did out of love for them. An amazing rescue, right? An amazing act of incredible, gracious love. Verse 8. When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed, your time was a time of love. So I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you and you became mine, says the Lord God. What a gift! I mean, a gift of protection, a gift of ownership, a gift of grace. You are mine! The passage continues, I washed you in water. I thoroughly washed off your blood. I anointed you with oil. I clothed you and I adorned you. Verse 14, your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty. For it was perfect through my splendor which I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God. Again, how amazing is that? For God to do that for them. How incredible is God to do this, which is also what God has done for us today in Christ. Because without Him, we’re all hopelessly lost and doomed for wrath. We can relate, see? We can relate to this. But look how they responded, verse 15. But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame. and poured out your harlotry on everything passing by who would have it. What sin is this? This is what God gets for doing all that for them? Yep. They went after other gods. They made their children pass through the fire. They erected altars for themselves. They committed wretched sins without even blushing. And they spitefully rebelled against the God who had rescued them. It gets worse. You say, how can it get worse? It does. Verse 30. How degenerate is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot. Verse 33. Men make payments to all harlots, but you’ve made your payments to all your lovers and hired them to come to you from all around for your harlotry. In other words, she has hired rather than been hired by her clients. Israel. She not only gives herself away for free, but she buys lavish gifts for all of her illicit lovers. Might as well slap God in the face. Israel. What a bunch of wretched sinners. That’s us. This applies to us. Yes, it applies. I mean, we have done the same thing. We’re no better than the harlot Israel. We do it every time we sin. We have idols. We put ourselves first instead of God. We chase after money and things way too much. We’re spiritually lazy. We love the things of this world way too much. We choose to watch TV instead of pray. We watch YouTube instead of reading the Word of God. We don’t battle sin like we ought to battle sin. We exalt much lesser things over the one great thing. And we can very much relate to the harlot Israel. And God certainly deserves better. You say, John, what are you trying to accomplish here? I’d really like to make you cry. I’d like to make me cry. Like they cried in Nehemiah 8, you know? But I can’t do that. Only the Spirit of God can do that. Only the Spirit of God can do that. But I sure wish He would. Like He did here. Because people who see their sin and people who truly weep over their sin, they’re the ones who really love God from the depths of their innermost hearts because they know, that is me. I’m the spiritual leper, the spiritual harlot, the child that’s in that field in Ezekiel 16. That is me. And look, God rescued me because of amazing love. And I sin against Him so very often. And Lord, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Lord. I’m sorry. See, the more you understand God’s incredible forgiveness and grace that you don’t deserve, the more you love Him. He who has been forgiven much, loves much. And overlooking our wretched sinfulness, brushing it aside, sloughing it off, becoming hardened to it, will create a bunch of mediocre Christians instead of red-hot, passionate, love-compelled, earnest Christians who know that they don’t deserve God and what He gives to us. But look, we still get it because He’s so incredibly amazing. Who are we to have a God like that? Look, we too often develop a callous attitude towards Scripture. And we refuse to allow it to penetrate deep into our hearts. We long for peace when there should be a war in our soul. We want pleasure and not pain. We feel that it’s our right to be happy and churches that make us feel otherwise are ridiculed and derided. But being convicted about our sin and being cut to the heart over our sin is a very, very good thing. Not that we stay there. but that we flee to God with that sin for forgiveness and mercy. That we repent and turn back to God, our God who is full of grace and love, for all who go to Him with their sin. What’s next in Ezekiel should make us all weep, by the way. Verse 60, Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. What? What? What? God did all this for us and we rebelled so blatantly against Him and this is how God responds? What’s going on? Lord, why? How, Lord, could you accept me? Why? Verse 62, I will establish my covenant with you. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame when I provide you an atonement for all you have done, says the Lord God. Again, what? I spit in his face and he does all this for me? How could he? But he does. For believing, repentant, weeping Israel back then, and certainly for all who believe and go to him in repentant faith today, for salvation of course, but also for restoration. It’s called grace. The amazing grace of God. What is grace? Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards sinners who don’t deserve it. Grace is everything for nothing to those who don’t deserve anything. Grace is what every man needs, what no one can earn, and what God alone can and does freely give. Grace makes strangers into God’s sons. Grace is God’s generous favor to undeserving sinners and to needy saints. And God is a God of amazing grace to dirty, undeserving sinners like us. He saves us by His grace. He keeps us by His grace. And He daily sustains us and restores us by His grace. And don’t we know it? Anybody? Anybody? Don’t we know it? Who are we? Shouldn’t He be sick of us by now? Shouldn’t He be sick of me by now? I mean, sinning day by day by day. By day. And Him continually showering me with undeserved grace. I’d be sick of me. Lord, here I am again with all this sin. I’m a harlot, Lord. I’m a harlot. I’m a harlot. He should have been done with me a long time ago. But he doesn’t do away with me. That’s the kind of God we have. So the people wept over their sin rightly so. Upon hearing the law, these sinful people recognize their dire standing before God and they’re intensely convicted of their sin. They experienced physical release from Babylonian captivity, but at the water gate, they experienced spiritual release from their bondage of sin as they repented of that sin before God. As one said, just as their sin had led them into Babylonian captivity, it had led them into spiritual captivity too. And just as God mercifully and graciously freed them from the Babylonian captivity, so is He ready to free them from their spiritual captivity. And their weeping over their sin on that day, their repenting over their sin is essential. It’s a great thing. When’s the last time you wept over your sin? You should. We all should. Isaiah said when he saw the Lord, Woe is me, I am ruined. I’m a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. And that’s the right response. May God speak to our hearts today. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would soften hard hearts, Lord. We can all become hardened and calloused in our sin. We get used to grace. We get used to amazing grace so that as time goes by, if we’re not careful, it’s not so amazing grace. I pray that we would be reminded of how amazing Your grace and mercy and forgiveness is, of how amazing You are. Help us, Lord. Help us to hate sin with more fervor and passion. And help us in response to be the most joyful people there are. People who are filled with intense and passionate love for You. Because You deserve it. You are worthy. Speak to our hearts now. Help us to respond accordingly. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thanks for joining us for today’s exposition from the book of Nehemiah on Expository Truths with Dr. John Kyle. To expositorytruths.org. Faith Community Church seeks to exalt Christ by bringing clarity of truth through the scriptures with a commitment to glorifying God through the pure, deep and reaching message of the gospel. Pastor John is the preaching pastor at Faith Community Church of Vacaville, a seminary professor and a trainer of preaching pastors overseas. Join for services at Faith Community Church Sundays at 9 and 1045 a.m. 192 Bella Vista Road, Suite A. To learn more, visit vacavillefaith.org or call 707-451-2026. That’s 707-451-2026. Or visit vacavillefaith.org.
