I've been focusing over the past few weeks on Nehemiah 8 and 9 and have been leading us in prayers that God's Holy Spirit might work in His people a greater desire for the Lord and His Word and for God to send us His servants to preach and teach the Word of God uncompromisingly and clearly, with Holy Spirit authority, power and boldness.

• 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)
• pray for ministers to read from the book clearly, give the sense & understanding - Neh. 8:8
• Awaken a hunger for Biblical preaching (accounts of revival in Virginia in the late 18th c.)
• Forgive us, Holy Spirit, for grieving You, for not paying attention to Your Word
• Forgive us, Holy Spirit, for grieving You by despising the gift of Your Word
• May we increasingly desire to understand & study Your Word (Neh. 8:13)
• "not only in word" - send Your Holy Spirit so we might proclaim Your Gospel in power

As the Word of God is preached in the power of God, the Holy Spirit will convict men of sin, but for those who are in Jesus Christ there is no condemnation. Today I'm going to touch a little on the confession and repentance that will come as a result of the Holy Spirit's work through the preaching the Word, but for today I would like to focus more on the gift of assurance God makes available to those who are in Christ. In a future post, I hope to look at Nehemiah and reflect more on confession and repentance of sin at that time.

Nehemiah 8:8  They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

9  And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and 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 or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. 10  Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” 11  So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” 12  And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

Holy God,

Right preaching, teaching and understanding of Your Word come through Your Holy Spirit, and as Your Spirit moves, we will experience grief, weeping, confession and repentance over our sin and our sinfulness, much like the Israelites did here. After all, Your Spirit is Holy and Your desire for us is to be a holy nation. After all, You loved us so much that You sent Your Son to die for our sin so we might be reconciled to You. Apart from Your provision for us in Christ, we would remain separated from You, but now we are Yours, fully justified in Your sight by Christ's blood and being sanctified through Christ's Spirit. We praise You that in Your great love toward us, Your manifold mercies and You sovereign grace, You called us out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light, and You gave us ears to hear and hearts to respond to Your call, so we might be saved and become Your children.

In a similar manner, we see Israel responding in weeping and grief as they heard Your Word. We see how they were convicted of their sin and their sinfulness. Not long after this (Nehemiah 9) we see Your appointed leaders leading Your people in corporate confession of sin. We thank You that we see these responses here as well as elsewhere in Your Word. May we never shrink back from preaching Your Word, all of Your Word, including the clear teaching of Your holiness and Your call to holiness, confession and repentance of our sin. A true understanding of You and Your Word will produce true confession of sin which will bear fruits worthy of repentance.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Gospel not only of remission of sins but also of repentance (Luke 24:44-49). We praise You, O God, for Your kindness that has led us to repentance. Apart from Your turning us toward You, we could never turn to You.

Yet, Holy Father, we see how Israel was not supposed to grieve that same day, and then again the second day they were to begin the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. After the grief and weeping here it would make sense for us to go to Nehemiah 9 and say, "Now here's the full-blown confession and repentance of sin," but that's not what we have here.

The first thing we see right after the grief, mourning and brokenness over sin is Your directing Your leaders to help Your people to rejoice in You and Your goodness to them. They were reminded the joy of the Lord was their strength. They were to celebrate Your provision by sharing with others. And during the Feast of Tabernacles they were to commemorate how You were faithful to provide for them in the wilderness. There's a clear affirmation that though all of us have sinned, though all of us deserve to be condemned, though none of us deserves anything (not even a crumb) from Your gracious and merciful hand, though we were not worthy to be children of God, yet You have loved us because You loved us. O, yes, we have greatly sinned, but we do have great cause for rejoicing! You died for us while we were yet sinners, and You made us children of God. We praise You that in Jesus Christ there is complete forgiveness and cleansing, there is no condemnation for those who are God's elect through Your covenant mercies showered down on us in Jesus Christ. It is finished!

Lord God, may all of us come to a greater understanding of the precious gift of full assurance of forgiveness and cleansing of sins for all who have come by grace through faith to believe Your Son is the propitiation for our sins – all our sins: past, present and future. Christ was condemned in our place for our sin, so we might be set free from the penalty and power of sin as well as the guilt of sin to be free to live lives holy to You. Yes, we should and must be grieved over and confess and repent of our sin, not only at our conversion but throughout all our lives. Yes, we must be seeking to be holy as You are holy, for Your will for us is sanctification and without holiness we cannot see You. God forbid we would presume upon Your mercies and trample upon Christ's blood and be deceived and believe we can remain in sin so grace might abound. Protect us from turning Your grace into licentiousness. Yes, we need to be on guard against sin, putting off our sin and putting on Christ. Yet we so desire You would show us the joy and peace You want us to have who have trusted in Christ. O, that we might truly know the breadth and length and depth and height of Your love for us in Jesus Christ. O, that we might know the freedom we have in Christ not only in our heads but also in our hearts. May Your joy be our strength!

Lord God, send us pastors and teachers after Your own heart, those who have been broken by You and have wept in true contrition over their sin and sinfulness and have come to receive the gift of joy of Your salvation. We are distressed when people try to keep Your flock bound and held captive by stirring up false guilt over their sin rather than reassuring them of the all-sufficient work of Christ on their behalf. We are distressed when there is more emphasis on works rather than grace. We are distressed when the gift of salvation is distorted into a quid pro quo. We are distressed when we see Christians who have not known the joy of their salvation. Raise up for us pastors and teachers who will remind us of the boldness, assurance and confidence that is available to all of us who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus' desire is that our joy be full, but how can our joy be full if we never hear that there is forgiveness full and free in Jesus Christ? How can the good news really be good if Christ did not pay the penalty for our sin once for all? How many good works do we have to do to atone for our sin? Chief Shepherd, look with favor on us and guard and protect us from such teachers. May we each be able to rest completely in Your gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Yes, we must be grieved over our sin and confess it. Yes, we must be walking in good works. Yes, we must be working out our salvation with fear and trembling, but our works will not save us, but such works will grow as fruit of a regenerate heart; they will the evidence of the new life You have imparted to us in Jesus Christ.

We see that after the great conviction of sin, there was very great rejoicing! Very great!

13  On the second day the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law. 14  And they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, 15  and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” 16  So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17  And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18  And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days . . .

O, certainly there can and should be very great rejoicing in the Christian life. Very great! Yes, we should and must very greatly mourn and weep over our sin, because we have sinned greatly...yet You did a very great thing for us in providing atonement for our sin through Jesus Christ and then imputing Christ's righteousness to us by faith! A very great thing! May we respond with very great rejoicing to Your very great provision for our sin!

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

O, Holy, Holy, Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly and yet in Your love, mercy and grace, You provided the sin offering we could never provide: the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect, spotless Lamb of God!

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

O, what kind of God are You! Holy, Holy, Holy! We were an unclean things and all of our righteousness was filthy rags! We were dead in our sins, helpless, powerless and weak. There was no intercessor. There was no mediator. There was no hope. And yet...in the fullness of time, Holy God, You provided the Lamb to die for our sin, to make us holy, to make us the righteousness of God! You were just and justifier. You are both Judge and Advocate. You are our High Priest and atoning sacrifice! We praise and thank You. We rejoice greatly in the salvation You alone could provide!

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

O, teach us to rejoice in the salvation You purchased for us on the cross! Even as we weep over our sin, show us Your love, mercy and grace in Jesus Christ! May we never despair over our sin, but continue to look to the cross, to look to Your full provision for all our sin. Help us to know the full assurance of the pardon You purchased for us at Calvary! May we continue to soak ourselves in Your Word and Your truth about who we are in Christ, to remind us of the work You have already accomplished once for all for us. Our sins which were once scarlet have become white as snow because the spotless Lamb became sin for us. You have cast our sins into the sea. As far as the east is from the west, so far have You removed our transgressions from us. You have said You will remember our sins no more! May we come to You unashamed, because You are not ashamed of us. May we come boldly to You and cry out, "Abba, Father!" Speak to us, Holy Spirit, write these truths in our minds and on our hearts that we are the children of God. May we rejoice in the redemption You purchased for us. May we rejoice in You, O loving, merciful and gracious God! Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah! What a Savior! Amen and Amen.

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

Please add your prayers as the Spirit leads you. If you are having troubling understanding the assurance of forgiveness available to all who are in Christ, please go to God and ask Him to grant You the gift of assurance God has purchased for You through Jesus Christ. I also invite you to message me and/or to read my posts on my other site on assurance and assurance and fighting for joy.

During the past couple weeks I have been focusing here on the need for us to pray for Biblical preaching to be restored to the Church:

• 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)
• pray for ministers to read from the book clearly, give the sense & understanding - Neh. 8:8

During that time, the main Scripture text I have had us focus on has been the first portion of Nehemiah 8:

Nehemiah 8:1  And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 2  So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. 3  And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. 4  And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. 5  And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. 6  And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. 7  Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. 8  They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

For too long Biblical preaching has been jettisoned by many in the Church all in the name of growing the Church. There is a desire to attract people to the Church, but we know that the message of the cross, the message of the helplessness and sinfulness of man is not an attractive message. The cross is an offense and Christ is the stumbling stone. We are never to make growing the Church our primary goal. The only thing that will truly attract people to the Church and to Jesus Christ Himself is the work of the Spirit of God Himself in the human heart, to bring brokenness, a spirit of repentance, poverty of spirit and the soul hunger for the salvation found in Jesus Christ alone. If we faithfully pray and lift up Christ and Him crucified, we can trust that the Holy Spirit will draw those whom He is calling to Himself.

Let us never compromise, minimize or dumb down the preaching the Word of God in the name of Church growth or for expediency, popularity, trendiness or to gain favor with men. We are dealing with the eternal fate of the souls of men and women and boys and girls here! We're to be making disciples, not merely adding to the church rolls. The Church is not a business and must never be run based on surveys or what people say they want. God has made it clear what He wants: His Gospel to be preached to the ends of the earth to His glory! And, let us be clear about this: the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation! Yes, it's true that we may very well grow the Church in numbers through many, many other means, but how deep and lasting can such growth be if it is not rightly and solidly rooted in the right preaching of the Word of God? We need to beware of building on the sand and not on the Rock. We may very well have many souls come in through our church doors, but we must ask how many of those have truly entered into the straight and narrow gate and come into the Kingdom of God by grace through faith through the work of the Holy Spirit?

I still intend this site to be a springboard to prayer for revival. Because of that I've primarily posted prayers based on Scripture to help lead you (and me) in prayer for revival, but I have broken with that a few times, including a couple times as of late. On occasion (including today), I have brought you some exhortations and some accounts of God's past workings in Church history because I have come to see that besides reading the Bible and seeing God's hand working powerfully among His people there to revive them (including in this account in Nehemiah), another great impetus to prayer for revival is for us to look back at the history of revival in the Church. As the apostle Paul wrote about the Old Testament history of the Church, the same thing is true of all the history of the church: that these things are written as examples for us.

With that in mind, today I ask you to read a couple accounts of revival in 18th century Virginia. (The following excerpts are from Iain Murray's "Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858," Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh: 1994, reprinted 1996).) My hope and prayer is that as you read and prayerfully consider these and reflect on them, the Holy Spirit will spur you on to pray for revival, and specifically to pray that God would awaken a hunger for Biblical preaching in the Church and the Word of God would be given its rightful place again in the Church all to God's praise, honor and glory. (Please note: since tent of meeting is a site I would like to keep devoted to prayer for revival, if you do wish to discuss these things further, I do invite you to message me and/or check out my other blogs here and here, where I do post on some of these things from time to time. Thank you.)

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