My recent posts based on Nehemiah 8 have focused us to pray that the Word of God might be restored to its rightful place in our churches.

• May we gather as one man to hear Your Word (Nehemiah 8)
• Give us ears to be attentive to Your words alone (Nehemiah 8:3)
• one sign of revival: attentiveness to the Word of God (Whitefield's Journals)
• "People cannot take preaching...People are dying through lack of knowledge." (ML-J)

As we look through the Word of God, we can't help but see how much God values and treasures His Word, and we ought to do the same. So much of the Church today has been guilty of not treasuring the Word and not giving the Word of God its rightful place. That's why I am continuing to post on this theme (and expect to continue to do so with at least a couple more posts from Nehemiah in the coming days, D.V.). If we don't have our foundation set rightly in the Word of God, we will end up going all wrong. In the past several years, we've certainly reaped what we've sown; we've seen the sorry fruit of that over the past many years now.

For today's post I'm returning once again to Nehemiah 8.

As you read and reflect on the passage below, please notice how the ministers of God were used by God to read and teach the Word of God to give understanding to the people of God. (You may also like to read my related posts here, here, here and here.)

Lord God,

We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We thank You that while we had gone astray each to our own way, You laid our sin on Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish. We thank You for redeeming us with His precious blood. We thank You for giving us the gift of Your Word to sustain us day in and day out.

We are Your people. You have given us Your Word, but apart from Your Holy Spirit we can have no true and right understanding of Your Word. As we read and listen to Your Word, we pray You would continually guide us, protect us from error and lead us into all truth.

We are Your people. You have given us Your Word. In addition to Your Holy Spirit, You have ordained and gifted and sent men and women today in the Church to give us understanding from Your Word. We pray You would protect those You send from error and lead them into all truth. We pray You would give us ears to hear Your voice and to flee from the voice of strangers.

We see in Nehemiah 8 how You ordained and sent and gifted leaders who

We pray You would send us such ministers today!

We confess how so many of our leaders no longer read from the Book at all! Preachers and teachers in the church and parachurch organizations look to their own ideas or to the words of men in other books or on television or the internet. They go everywhere else for messages but to You, O Lord. O, how foolish we are! You alone have the Words of life. So many confer with other men but they have neglected to sit and commune with You, living God, and listen to You speak to them through Your precious Word. We confess there are so many leaders out there who center and ground their teaching on any and all things but Your precious, life-giving, life-changing Word.

Forgive us, Word of God, for neglecting the holiness and the absolute centrality of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders may read from the Book but they do not read from the Book clearly! Forgive us, Word of God. We confess how so many of our leaders have taken Your wholesome words and made them unwholesome. They have taken the living waters and made them stagnant. There is no life in the words they speak. They have not preached Your Word with authority. They have not preached Your Word with Your Holy Spirit power. They have not preached Your Word as if it were truth. They preach no differently than Pilate who asked our Lord, "What is truth?" They preach as if the Bible is just another book and its teachings not authoritative or vital to us. So many make no clear distinction between the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow, straight gate that leads to life.

Forgive us, Word of God, for devaluing the authority and uniqueness of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders no longer give the sense as they preach and teach but rather they end up confusing their hearers! We confess how so much preaching and teaching today does not clearly lift up Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life. Your Gospel is to be proclaimed, not to be debated. The Word of God is to be expounded, to show forth Christ clearly from beginning to end. Satan is a deceiver and a liar and the father of lies. The devil wants to keep people blinded and entangled by his lies. Misinformation, disinformation and confusion are his specialties. He delights to keep people wrapped up in his kingdom of darkness, in the shadows, in confusion, without a true sense of reality, blinded and unable to see the light of Your glorious Gospel and hear the good news of great joy proclaimed. Your Word is to be preached and taught clearly so it might bring light to those in darkness, to set the prisoners free, to bring oil of joy for mourning. Yet how often is the Gospel message clouded and blurred today, so no sense is given, but only nonsense is taught and souls remain lost and in the dark, apart from You, the true Light. So many who sit under such teaching never understand their true spiritual condition: that they are lost sinners with no hope apart from the Gospel. How can lost sinners believe on Christ unless they hear preaching that gives the sense?

Forgive us, Word of God, for obscuring the light and truth of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders do not impart understanding to their hearers! We confess that some leaders have been enamored with intellect and scholarship and the esteem of men that they no longer preach the simple message of Christ and Him crucified. We confess that other leaders have added layers and layers upon the simplicity of the Gospel, to confound it, to make the Gospel about us and our works rather than about Jesus Christ and His work done for us on the cross and continuing in us through His Holy Spirit. You, Lord of the universe, invited the little children to come to You. Even the common people heard You, Lord. The glorious Gospel is foolishness to the world, but to those being saved it is the power of God. Yet today we confess that so much of what is preached and taught complicates, confuses, clouds and confounds those who hear it. So many leaders today do not clearly lead and shepherd the hungry sheep into green pastures and the thirsty sheep to still waters. We confess so many of our leaders no longer impart understanding of Your Word to Your people, but rather cause much misunderstanding, so the flock remains hungry and thirsty. Our leaders neglect to clearly proclaim that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only power to save sinners; that Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

Forgive us, Word of God, for being ashamed of and stumbling at the simple wisdom of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

A couple days ago, when I began to write my post May we gather as one man to hear Your Word (Nehemiah 8), I was expecting to post on Nehemiah 8:1-8, but then decided to cut it off in the middle of verse 3 because the passage was so packed.

The end of verse three really hit me then (and it still does), particularly the word attentive:

I had planned to post on that last portion of verse 3 yesterday, but before I began to pray/write/prepare to post on that I had been paging through George Whitefield's Journals looking for something else, and, in the providence of God, I ended up stumbling across a wonderful account of Londoners being attentive to the Word of God in much the same way we read of in Nehemiah 8.

I had actually planned to include this account in my prayer yesterday, Give us ears to be attentive to Your words alone, but I got carried away with praying, so I would like for you to read it today (from p 88-89):

...for near three months successively, there was no end of the people flocking to hear the Word of God.

They were all attention, and hear like people hearing for eternity.

On Sunday mornings, long before day, you might see streets filled with people going to church, with their lanthorns in their hands, and hear them conversing about the things of God.

I've not seen people flocking to hear the Word of God in my city. Have you seen that in your city?
I've not seen that type of attentiveness to the Word of God in my city. Have you seen that in your city?
I've not seen the streets in my city filled with people going to Church conversing about the things of God? Have you seen that in your city?
I've not seen that kind of hunger for the Word of God in my city. Have you seen that in your city?

I think, no, I know it, a lot of people think those of us who are praying for revival are nuts.

Honestly, how can you not pray for revival when you read these accounts?
How can you not get down on your knees and beg and plead with God to revive us again?

That is why I am praying for revival, and I hope this gives you one more reason to pray for revival.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones spoke of the glorious possibilities God has for us as believers. This is one of those! People flocking to hear the Word of God and being attentive and hearing for eternity!

Dare we imagine it? Yes, we must imagine it! We must never lose sight of these glorious possibilities! And then let us look to the God of glory who can impart that hunger for and attentiveness to His Word once again! He is the God who can do immeasurably above all we can ask or imagine!

One sign of revivals is that there is an increasing desire to hear the Word of God preached rightly. We can see how wonderfully the Holy Spirit worked to make God's people attentive to His Word at the time of Whitefield. Whitefield wasn't preaching fluff. He wasn't catering to itching ears. He wasn't sugar-coating things. He was preaching Christ and Him crucified. He was preaching a Gospel of repentance and remission of sins by grace through faith in Christ. He preached of the need for souls to be born again and regenerated by the Spirit. I regret to say many people today do flock to churches, but those are churches where fluff and sugar-coated preaching is the rule. The apostle Paul's words to Timothy are evident: our churches are filled with people who no longer endure sound doctrine. They have heaped up teachers for themselves because they have itching ears. They have turned their ears away from the truth and turned to fables. Such preaching does nothing to impart life to dead souls or revive lukewarm or cold believers. I long and pray for the day when people would flock to hear the Word of God preached as it ought to be!

I will say that for those of us who are praying for revival, one of the most encouraging things we can continue to do is to read the accounts of revivals and the stories of the men and women God used during those times. Go back! Please do that! You can find books at your library or do searches online or ask me. When we look back at the work God has done in the past, it gives us hope of what God might do once again. When I read of past revivals and then look at the state of the Church today and the state of my own soul, it makes me sick to my stomach and causes me to weep to see how far we are from the glory God has for us . .  yet at the same time it also spurs me onto prayer for it gives me a vision of what is truly possible through the power of God Almighty. Yes, it seems impossible! It seems so unlikely! Yet we have a God who does the impossible and does unlikely things! He can part the Red Sea! He can cause the waters to stand up in a heap! He can cause Jericho walls to fall down! That's what makes God God after all!

We all know that God's Holy Spirit can come in the blink of an eye and rend the heavens and open a single heart or 3000 hearts to Him. The Spirit blows when and where He wills. Such a movement of the Holy Spirit is what I have been praying for, and I know many of you are also. Yes, this is impossible with any of us, but it is possible through Him.

When we look at the state of the Church through our human eyes, we would so quickly give up. But when we look at the Church with the eyes of faith and the assurance that God loves the Church and will never leave her or forsake her, we cannot help but persevere in prayer...after all, Jesus Himself is persevering in prayer, is He not? Truly God is the God who can do miracles today, and some of the greatest miracles God can do are to bring dead sinners to life and to take cold or lukewarm believers and ignite the with passionate fire. Many people are seeking physical healing, but let us consider how much more wondrous and amazing are the supernatural spiritual healings God desires to work in souls, souls which are currently separated from Him by that great gulf fixed or those souls which once burned hot for Him but now have left their first Love. I know I have seen touches of that reviving work in my own life and in the lives of a few others, but I am not satisfied with that. I am praying God might do such work on a large scale as we have seen happen at various times throughout history, including the time of Whitefield and the brothers Wesley. That's what revival is. It's not a sideshow. It's not a feel good experience, it's not a health and wealth prosperity gospel, but it's the power of God coming to breathe life into dead souls, or to revive into all but dead believers for His glory.

Revival is people convicted of their sin and cut to the heart, pleading "What must we do to be saved?"
Revival is people seeing they are unclean and their righteousness is filthy rags.
Revival is people weeping over their sin and seeking to be holy.
Revival is people being transformed and set free from the power of sin.
Revival is people zealous for the glory of God and the Gospel.
Revival is people being shaken from their apathy about their own soul and the souls of others.
Revival is people being given a heart to weep and plead for the souls of the lost.

Again, none of us can make revival happen, but we can plead with the Lord that He might be gracious to us, and we can be faithful to remain in His Word and give out His Word without compromise. God is sovereign and He does all things in His time, always. But let us not give up meeting Him in prayer in the tent of meeting, and let us not give up encouraging one another to pray. Perhaps God's Spirit might be poured down on us from on high! We are poor and needy! May He have mercy on us, His Church, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

Exodus 32:1  When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us.  As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2  So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3  So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4  And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ...

33:1  The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2  I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3  Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

4  When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5  For the LORD had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’” 6  Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

7  Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8  Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9  When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. 10  And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11  Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

12  Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13  Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14  And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15  And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16  For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Lord God, we confess we are a stiff-necked people. Except for Your love, mercy and grace toward us who are in Christ, You would have consumed us long ago. We are no different than our forefathers. We have made our golden calves and worshiped them. We have discarded Your glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ for cheap imitations. We have preached Jesus as anything but the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We have lifted Him up as a good man or teacher but not as the atonement for our sins. We have shrunk back from preaching the torn flesh and the shed blood, but You, spotless Lamb of God, You never shrunk back from Your Father's will for You. You became obedient unto death, even death on the cross, all so we might be redeemed. You died for us while we were yet sinners. Some have even taught the lie that the cross was cosmic child abuse. O, but it was Your will, holy Father, to crush the Son so He might be lifted up as an offering for sin and so we might have life in Him. There was no other way for us to be brought to You but through His death on the cross. Our sins had to be punished in Him. He had to be made a curse for us so we might become the righteousness of God. The punishment that brought us peace was upon our dear Lord.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Just as the Israelites stripped themselves of their ornaments, we come before You now and we are stripping ourselves of all that is not glorifying to You: for those ways in which we have discarded, minimized, marginalized, diluted, corrupted and hidden the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified. We have sinned a great sin in Your sight, O Holy God. For us to receive the free gift of salvation by grace through faith and not to proclaim it as we ought is most grievous to You. For us to receive the free gift of salvation by grace through faith and to be ashamed of it is most grievous to You. Forgive us and cleanse us from our sin. We plead the blood of Christ, for we have no other plea.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

We confess that too often we have wanted to gain favor in the world's eyes and so we exchange the glorious Gospel for a lie. We do not act distinctly from the world. We confess we are afraid of offending others, but yet You have told us clearly that the cross of Christ will offend. Forgive us for fearing men more than we fear You. You have told us that many will stumble over the cornerstone and that few will walk the narrow way and many will remain on the broad way that leads to destruction. We cannot be obsessed with men's opinions of us. We must be obsessed with the pearl of great price and preach Christ and Him crucified. For through Christ alone is Your power unto salvation to all who believe: Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. From beginning to end, our salvation is all through the cross of Christ. There is no other way for men to be saved. In Christ alone is the true wisdom of God, though the cross may appear foolish to men. And we will look foolish as we speak it and write it. Yet there is no other good news for bad men but through the cross. The cross shows us our sin and points us to the only way to be reconciled to You. There is no other Mediator between God and men but the man Christ Jesus. There is no life for dead men but through the cross. There is no freedom from the penalty of sin but through the cross. There is no freedom from the power of sin but through the cross.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Forgive us, Lord. Cleanse us from our sin.  Bring us back to the preaching of Your Word as we ought to preach it. If Jesus Christ and Him crucified is not lifted up and made the main thing, then how can we presume Your presence will go with us? We cannot. The Spirit was sent to glorify Jesus. The way Jesus is glorified is through the preaching of the cross. The only way You receive all glory, honor and praise is through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. How can we say we love You if we shrink back from preaching Christ and Him crucified? Forgive us for not holding fast to what really matters: Your glorious Gospel. We have grieved and quenched Your Spirit. Forgive us. We cannot accomplish the work You have for us apart from Your Spirit falling once again on the Church to revive us. Yes, we have been given Your Spirit when we were first saved, but we ask You to come again to us as You have in days past. In Your time we are trusting You will come again and revive us. Our bones are dead and dry and we need life, Lord of life. Be gracious to us, sovereign Lord.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

How can anyone believe in You if they do not hear the preaching of the cross? No wonder why we are so ineffective today. No wonder why the Church looks no different than the world. No wonder why we continue to have churches that are a mile wide but an inch deep. True growth in holiness will never occur without the right preaching of the Word of God. We will remain as infants. And You will never bless us when we do not make the cross of Christ central. Yes, many churches may appear to be blessed, yet no church can ever rightly claim to be blessed by You unless they are lifting up Christ and Him crucified. As we try to serve two masters, we may gain a bit of favor in the eyes of men, we may grow numerically, but in the process we are losing our souls. And countless souls will leave our churches never having heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ rightly preached. And one day You will hold us accountable for what we have done with this glorious Gospel committed to our trust. How many lambs have we neglected our of expediency or fear of men or in an attempt to be trendy?

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Lord God, how can preaching anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified be pleasing to You? Forgive us for seeking the approval of men. Forgive us for giving into the desires of our flesh. Your flesh was torn so we might be freed from the flesh nature and walk in the Spirit. How can we say we have Your Spirit if we do not preach Christ rightly? Forgive us, Holy Spirit of Christ for how often we have quenched You. The Spirit longs to have Jesus Christ lifted up. May we lift Him up as we ought. Lord God, You have committed this Gospel to us, this Gospel of salvation through faith in the blood of Christ. This is the Gospel You have entrusted to us. It is the only Gospel. Forgive us for not being trustworthy. Forgive us for not being good stewards. Forgive us for not guarding it as we ought. Forgive us for not contending for the Gospel as we ought. We cannot yoke ourselves with the world – ever. We are sent into the world but we are not of this world. We are sent with a message that comes from heaven. May we not dumb down or accommodate the message of the cross in any way. It will appear foolish and weak to the world. We will appear foolish and weak to the world as we preach it. Yes, the preaching of the cross is foolishness and weakness to the world, but it is the only power to reconcile lost men to God. Strengthen and equip us to speak clearly Your Gospel, no matter the cost to us. Send us pastors who are committed the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.