Nehemiah chapter 8, I need to begin by reading the passage as succinctly as I can. Beginning in verse 1, and all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the water gate and asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding." Apparently they had a nursery. On the first day of the seventh month, he read from it, from the square which was in front of the water gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand. And all the people were attentive to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium, or more correctly perhaps, platform. Verse 5, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, while lifting up their hands. Then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. End of verse 7, the Levites who were scattered out among the people and are really like relaying to the perimeter what Ezra is saying. There's probably 42,000 people gathered here. There's no microphone. And so, the Levites are passing on what Ezra is reading and saying. They explain the law to the people while the people remained in their place. They read from the book, from the Law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. In verse 9, Ezra and the priests say, this day is holy to the Lord your God, do not mourn and weep. Why would he say that? Because the people are convicted to the core of their bones from the reading of the Word of God and he must comfort them. You can only weep so much. You can only mourn so much. You can only confess that sin so much. God is a God of forgiveness. The transaction has occurred. For all the people...end of verse 9...were weeping when they heard the words of the law. Verse 10, he has to say it again, do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Verse 11, do not be grieved. This is like the day of Pentecost. They're cut to the core. Their sin is exposed. They are weeping. And Ezra and the Levites comfort the people. End of verse 11, do not be grieved. The joy of the Lord is your strength. And so, they go from repentance to rejoicing. They're brought down, then they're built up. They're uprooted, then they're planted. But at the end of verse 12, here's the tip of the spear. Here's the cutting edge. This is what makes it a real revival. This is why it's not just a hyper-emotional, mystical experience. running on just feelings. At the end of verse 12, all of this because they understood the words which had been made known to them. The Spirit of God only operates in tandem with the Word of God. The Spirit of God and the Word of God are inseparably bound together. No one will ever be saved apart from the Word of God and understanding the words of the law. No one will ever be sanctified independent of the reading of the Word of God and understanding the Word of God. You can have all kinds of church meetings. But if there is no Word of God, it's just kind of trumped up on your own. Martin Luther said the church should never meet for anything, I think he said any occasion, except there be the ministry of the Word of God. That would shut down a lot of church programs. and a lot of activity. If the Word of God does not occupy the centerpiece, every great season of Reformation and every great hour of spiritual awakening has been ushered in by a recovery of the primacy and the centrality of the ministry of the Word of God. J.H. Merrill DuVernay, the noted historian of the Reformation said, the only true Reformation...let me start that sentence over...the only true Reformation is that which emanates from the Word of God. That's what happened in the sixteenth century. Sola Scriptura, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Bollinger, Knox, Tyndale. It was an explosion of the Word of God. There were more Bibles produced in 50 years than had been produced in the previous 1,500 years at the heart of the Reformation. It's what happened in the Puritan Age. In fact, they took it to another level. That's what's happening here. When the Word comes back, God comes to church. And so as we look at this, in the few minutes that we have, the date is 445 B.C., the place is Jerusalem. It's one week after finishing the wall around Jerusalem. They have finished their building project. But what they need is the Word of God. So, in verse 1, we see the call for biblical preaching. The call for biblical preaching, this is where every revival and every Reformation begins. Verse 1, and all the peoples, somewhere between forty and fifty thousand people, some estimate between thirty and forty-five thousand people at some place in...it's a massive, what would be like a football stadium, gathered as one man, meaning one purpose, one heart, one mind. one place at the square which was in front of the water gate which is on the east side of Jerusalem. And the reason they have gathered together, they have come back from Babylonian captivity, they've been gone for seventy years. And Deuteronomy 31 says that every seven years there is to be the reading of the entire Pentateuch, the reading of the Law of Moses, and it has been neglected. And so this really starts out as a grassroots movement. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law. Ezra didn't start this meeting or call for this. The people, this is a grassroots movement. It's a bottom to top. The people cry out, bring the book, bring the book. This is every preacher's dream. Bring the book. They know that Ezra knows the Word of God better than anyone in the land. Ezra returned to Jerusalem fourteen years earlier. And you can read about it in Ezra 7 and in verse 10, it says, Ezra sent his heart to study the law of the Lord, to practice it and to teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel. For fourteen years, he has been drilling down, drilling down, drilling down into the Word of God. He's been exegeting it. He's been studying it. He's been extracting the doctrine. He's been piecing it together. He is saturated with the Word of God. He is a scribe. He's the man. This is no time for amateur hour. He's the man to bring the Word of God. The people demanded it. And just to make a word of application, this is what needs to happen in your church. Pastor, could we have more of the Word on Sunday morning? Pastor, could we start the service on time and have more time for the Word? Pastor, could you just shorten the announcements? Pastor, could you hold out some illustrations? Pastor, would you mind maybe if we sang one less verse? We need more of the Word of God. Bring the book, Pastor, bring the book. There needs to be a heart cry, an aggressive heart cry in your church. for the pastor to bring the book, and you will be wind in his sails to propel him forward. To make one other point of application, Ezra had no idea fourteen years earlier that this was going to happen. He's just faithful to study the Bible. He's just faithful to have a depth about him, having no idea a day like this would ever come in his life. And that should speak volumes to us today. We have no idea fourteen years from now what's going to happen in your life. You just need to drill down right now today in the Word of God and be equipped and prepared and ready for whatever is around the corner that God has in store for you. Ezra was ready for this. God had made the man for the moment and He made the moment for the man. His entire life had been a preparation for this one moment in time. That's the cry for biblical preaching. And by the way, you need to be in a church like this. And if you're not, get out. Why would you go to a restaurant that doesn't serve you food? And then pay your money for what you didn't receive. It's insanity. It makes no sense. I don't care if your grandfather used to eat there. They're not serving food anymore. You need to get in a church where the Word of God is being preached or you're going to be a spiritual pygmy. You need the primary ordinary means of grace, which is the preaching of the Word of God in an adult portion. Stop eating off the kids' menu. Now this leads second, verse 2, to the characteristics of biblical preaching. And I'm going to have to summarize this very quickly. It's not just more preaching that is needed. We've got enough hot air in churches as it is. We need a certain kind of preaching. In fact, I think we have too many preachers. I think we have too many churches. I think we have too many pulpits. I think we have more pulpits than we have God-called preachers. So what kind of preaching did Ezra bring forth? Five things. Number one, it was biblically grounded, verse 2, that Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men and women, all who could understand, who could listen with understanding. He brought the written Word of God. He didn't get up there and say, well, you know, this morning in the shower, God gave me a word. You can go sit down, sir, or go back to your shower. I mean, the written Word of God. I mean, Luther said, I've made a covenant with God that I will not entertain dreams and visions, etc. It is the objective black and white written Word of God. That's what Ezra brought. John Calvin said, when we enter the pulpit, it is not so that we may bring our own dreams and fancies with us. The minister's whole task is limited to the ministry of God's Word. Calvin said, as soon as men depart, even in the slightest degree from God's Word, they cannot preach anything but falsehoods, vanities, errors and deceits. So, Ezra had nothing to say apart from the Word of God. He read it. He explained it and taught it as he went. I mean, he's here, in fact, look at verse 3, the second characteristic, it's a lengthy treatment. In verse 3, he read from it, the law before the square which is in front of the water gate from early morning until midday. Now this is not prescriptive that every sermon is to be six hours. It should be much longer than that. Early morning is 6 AM, midday is 12 noon. But what we take from this is that it was a full treatment of the Word of God. I think what is timeless here is there is an exposition of the full counsel of God that transfers over to our need. There's a full treatment of Scripture, six hours. He could have just read the Pentateuch in less than six hours, which presupposes and reasonably implies He is explaining this as He goes. In fact, it says later in verses 9 and following that they were teaching as they go. It's a lengthy treatment. And so, I do want to express this concern, that a lengthy treatment of the Word of God is becoming rarer and rarer. Sermons are being shortened, sermonettes for Christianettes. We've canceled Sunday night preaching. We've canceled Wednesday night preaching. We have more music, more announcements, more small groups, more home groups, more counseling, more this and that, and these things are fine and good in their place. But what's being pushed out the back door is a lengthy treatment of the Word of God and the Puritans said this is the primary, ordinary means of grace. The average Christian sits under such little preaching of the Word that we no longer call the man in the pulpit preacher. He didn't preach enough to be called preacher. He's Brother Bob. He's whatever. We need more preaching. And it has also contributed to mediocrity in the pulpit. How can you become a better preacher? You're going to have to preach a lot. If you're trying to come to New York City to Carnegie Hall and play the violin, do you think more practice with the violin, less practice with the violin would get you here to New York City to Carnegie Hall? If you were trying to support your family on the professional golf tour, do you think more practice or less practice would get you to the PGA? I'd say the answer is pretty obvious. You're going to have to practice a lot. I believe the average pastor never even comes close, not even close, to his potential as a preacher if for no other reason he preaches so little. George Whitefield said, the more we preach, the better we preach. The more you preach, you learn the Bible better. You learn your commentaries better. You learn the original languages better. You learn theology better. You learn how to craft a sermon better. You learn how to apply it better. You learn how to exhort better. And if you're only occasionally preaching, you just need to understand there's going to be a low ceiling over your head unless you're just the most gifted person in your state. So, it was a lengthy treatment. Third, it was an authoritative posture. Verses 4 and 5, Ezra the scribe stood at the wooden podium, really It's...podium here is migdal, it means tower, like the Tower of Babel, a watchtower like in 2 Kings. It's really an elevated tall stage or platform. This is the only time the entire Old Testament is translated platform or podium. Every other time it's translated tower. And so, it's... Yes, so the preacher can be seen and heard, but also there is the effect that this message is over me. It's authoritative and it is coming down as though it's coming down out of heaven. It says, which they had made for the purpose And beside Him, I mean, He's flanked on both sides by these spiritual leaders and there is an authority about...about that. It's like on the day of Pentecost, the other eleven disciples flanked Peter on both sides. There is a solidarity about the leaders standing with the man who is preaching. In churches I've pastored in the past, it's kind of a funny thing. I mean, the other elders and deacons, they're just scattered all over the sanctuary. But we take the Lord's Supper, they all sit on the front row and it just pulls something out of me, more to have these men standing with me visibly in front of the congregation. And so they stood on his right and on his left. In verse 5, Ezra opened the book. It's not a book, it's a scroll. It's a document. It's a writing. In the sight of all the people, there's a certain authority about that to open the book. I mean, Luther said that an open Bible in the pulpit is the throne of God from which he rules in the church. He opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people And when he opened it, all the people stood up. They just instinctively rose to their feet and they understood that this is the Word of God. So there needs to be an authoritative posture that the preacher takes. He doesn't stand in the pulpit and stroke his chin and say, well, it seems to me. And he says, thus says the Lord. Titus 2 verse 15 says, all these things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. The preacher must speak with all authority. And then verse 6, it's a God-exalting message. Verse 6, then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. As he's preaching, he's just magnifying and elevating the name of God with his added comments as he is explaining. This is a theocentric exposition. It's like John Piper says, we must be exaltational expositors. The chief purpose of the Word of God is to magnify the God of the Word. And so, that's what's taking place here. I mean, Ezra is just elevating the greatness and the grandeur and the glory of God. And every preacher here today, as you look at your sermon notes, you just need to ask yourself this question, how much of God is there in this manuscript? How much of God is there in these notes? How much of God is there going to be in this sermon? We've got, I think, too much culture, too much society, too much me, too much other stuff, too little God in the sermon. Verse 6, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen. The Presbyterian said, Amen, Amen. Listen, great preaching should induce the listener to say Amen. Whether you verbally say it or not, that's not the point. The point is that it elicits an affirmation from your heart and there is an excitement in your soul for what is being declared to you about the greatness of God. You're not going to be amening if He's talking about the culture, for heaven's sake. But you...that they will if you're proclaiming God, magnifying God. And it says, while lifting up their hands, and the idea is as if catching this message as it's coming down from this elevated platform, but they were doing more than just raising their hands. I don't mind if you raise your hands as long as you do what's next. It says, then they bowed low to the ground and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Listen, the higher you magnify God, the lower the people will be. James Montgomery Boyce, one of my all-time heroes, 10th Presbyterian, Philadelphia, he came and preached for me when I was a very young man a couple of times. He came the whole week, preached Romans 1 through 4, came back, preached Romans 5 through 8. And I remember he gave this illustration of children on the playground. on a seesaw, a teeter-totter. And he made the very simple point, when one end is up, the other end is down. And then when this end is up, this end is down. But you can never have both ends up at the same time. It's either or, not both end. And then he made the profound point from the simple illustration that in your Christian life, in your preaching, in your teaching, if God is up, man is down. You can't have it both ways. But if man is up, then God is down. Well look what's happening here. He is blessing the Lord, the great God, and the people are falling like cut timber to the ground. and worshiping the Lord, magnifying His name. And let me make the point here, the preacher is to be the primary worship leader, not the music guy. And we need the music guy because most of us couldn't carry a tune in a bucket if we needed to. But whoever holds this book and opens it and reads it and explains it and applies it, he is the primary worship leader in that service. And if not, we need a new preacher. No song can ever begin to compare to a sermon. in height and depth and breadth and length, profundity, fullness of the whole counsel of God, taking a passage of Scripture, breaking it open. We love the hymns. I love the hymns. We love some of the choruses. I love singing the Psalms. Even singing the Psalms has a limitation. But with preaching, it's so obvious, so clear. to preach Christ. He's not hidden in the shadows. And then finally, verses 7 and 8, it's a text-explaining sermon. I mean, he's going down into the text and they are giving attention to the details in the text. At the end of verse 7, the Levites explained the Law to the people while the people remained in their place. They explained it. They didn't just whip them up into some hyper-emotional experience, they explained the text. Verse 8, they read from the book of the Law, and by the way, this word read, kara in the Hebrew, it means to cry out with a loud voice. Sometimes it means to roar, like the roaring of a lion. And even in the reading of the Word of God, there's passion, there's energy, there's a dynamic even about reading the Word of God. They...they cried out, they read from the book, from the Law of God, translating. And what this means is literally paras, it means to break down into its parts, which is really what exegesis does. It dives down into the text. The pearls are laying on the bottom. They're not floating on the top. And going down, breaking down its parts. to give the sense, that means they explained with insight and with understanding so that they understood the reading. This is the kind of preaching that God uses as a forerunner to revival, preaching that goes down into the text of Scripture, preaching that exegetes and interprets the Word of God in a...in a cognitive way, preaching that teaches the doctrine that is in the text of Scripture. What did Lloyd-Jones say preaching is? What is preaching? It is theology on fire. It is preaching that lifts its voice and proclaims the truth with conviction and passion. He's not using his inside voice. Preaching that rightly handles the Word of God and glorifies the greatness of God, this is the kind of preaching that ignites a revival. And I want you to notice, as we look back at this passage, I want you to notice that the central place that the Word of God and the mind has in this passage. Verse 1, they ask for the book of the Law, not stories. Verse 2, Ezra brought the law to all those who could listen with understanding. It does you no good if you don't understand. Verse 3, he read from it to those who could understand. All the people were attentive to the book of the law. And verse 5, Ezra opened the book...there...it's a book-driven book. Moment, verse 7, they explained the law to the people. There is this intellectual cognitive tip of the spear. Listen, you need to understand how the Christian life works. Mind, affections and will in that order. Anything real that God does in your life, it starts with your mind. The battle for the Christian life is the battle for the mind. And it is the affections that respond to what the mind has now learned. If it is to be a true God-produced affection and love, and then the will. The will is the handmaiden of the heart. That was Jonathan Edwards' whole argument in Freedom of the Will. that the will only chooses what the heart desires. Well the heart can only desire what the mind has taught it. And so this starts with the right place. It starts with truth...truth. And in verse 8, they read from the Law of God, translated to get the sense so that they understood the reading. Verse 9, the Levites who taught the people the words of the law, and then at the end of verse 12, all of this is because they understood the words of the law. In no way does this discount the affections. In no way does this discount the will. But listen, in baseball, you have to go to first base first. If you go hit the ball and run to second base, you're out. You hit the ball and run to third base, you're out. You have to go to first base, then to second base, then to third base if you're going to score a run. And first base is the mind. The truth, sanctify them by Your Word, Your Word is truth. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. It is the truth that ignites the heart. It is theology that produces doxology. And then that triggers the will. Understand this. So what are the consequences of biblical preaching? Well, in verse 9, there's repentance. They are crushed. They mourn and they weep. I wish I had time to do word studies for you on mourning and weeping. It's lamenting with grief and wailing with bitter tears, crying out loud, bewailing. And then in verse 10 and following, there's rejoicing. He tells them, listen. The joy of the Lord is your strength. I mean, in a true revival, it ushers in joy unspeakable and full of glory. You don't stay in tears. You're lifted up to the heights of heaven. But you can't get there until you first are broken over your sin. So this is the quickest walk-through I've ever done in the history of Western civilization. I understand this, God put the power in the Word. The last sermon Martin Luther ever preached, 1546, isolating, he returns to his hometown to settle a dispute between two like dukes over a and inheritance issue. Wherever Luther went, pulpits immediately opened up to him. This was his hometown. This was the church he grew up in. It was assumed Luther will preach. They had no idea this would be the last sermon Luther would ever preach. Luther had no idea this was the last sermon he would ever preach. And he saw his own home church kind of halfway to the Reformation. been Catholic for a thousand years, and they're moving in the right direction. They're not all the way there yet because Luther doesn't live here, but they want it. So, as he comes back, he notices and he hears that many of the good people are still going on pilgrimages to see relics. Thinking if I could just see Joseph's coat of many colors, if I could just see the steps leading up to Pilate's judgment hall, then somehow there is a power that is affected in my life. So Luther addresses this. He said, you think that there's some kind of sanctifying power, maybe even saving power if you could just travel and pay your money, he said, to see the Pope's junk. I love Luther. He said, you're looking for it in all the wrong places. He said, God put the power in the Word. If we're going to have a revival, it's not going to be a mystical experience, everyone staring at their navel, conjuring up thoughts. It's going to be a deep dive into the Word of God. And that's what happened in the sixteenth century with the Reformation. It was sola scriptura. That's what happened in the golden Puritan age. There were giants that walked the land in England with the Bible. It's what happened in the Great Awakening. Edwards, Whitefield, the tenants, etc. It's really what happened in some ways in the Victorian era with men like Ryle and Simeon and Spurgeon. As they sat under the preaching of the Word of God, there was an awakening. So this is what is the forerunner of revival. It's the needle that pulls the thread through the tapestry. It is when the people cry out, bring the book. And it's when the man of God who is well-studied and well-trained in the Word of God brings the full counsel of God and magnifies the name of God, then the people are deeply, deeply impacted. Wherever the Spirit of God is at work in the world, it is always in tandem with the written Word of God. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Father, thank You for this passage. It serves as a timeless reminder to us of what You did so long ago. We long to see this take place in our day. But You will not do it with wood, hay and stubble. You will only do it with gold, silver and precious stones brought from the treasury of Your Word. You will honor the man who honors Your Word. You will honor the church that honors Your Word. You will honor the denomination, the ministry that honors Your Word. And we can never take one step away from that. Bless this conference. Bless Sermon Audio which is just a beacon, a lighthouse. sending forth the Word of God around the world. Use it in ways far beyond what we can even understand as it literally is transmitting the preaching of the Word of God, much like what we see in this passage. Your timing is perfect. It may be another fourteen years, but God, we will remain faithful to Your Word. We have no place else to go. So bless Sermon Audio, bless Stephen Lee, bless the other speakers here, bless our churches back at home. Let this start with us. In Christ's name we pray, amen.