Thank you for listening to the media ministry of the Puritan Reformed Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California. If you are blessed by what you hear and would like to help keep our little church going as a ministry partner with your cheerful gifts, please listen for instructions at the end of this message. Again, we open our Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 1, and we are studying the structure of Nehemiah's prayer for a good example to us of the parts and the flow of how to open and where to go from there. This isn't a hard and fast rule in that it's sinning not to think of this, but there's a real value in looking at the structure and how it relates in many ways to the Lord's prayer as well, given to us to pray and use as a model for prayer. And so tonight we're going to look at the second component in order of Nehemiah's prayer. But what I would like to do with you is begin with verse 5, and read through verse 11 to look at the whole prayer, and remember where we've started as we look at the next part. So let me read verses 5 through 11, and then I will go back and we'll look at verse 6, the second part, through verse 8. Hear now the word of the Lord about how to pray to the Lord. And said I, that is, Nehemiah said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel. which we have sinned against thee. Both I and my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, if ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. O Lord, I beseech thee, Let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name and prosper. I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. So it's really that last part, I think, what's most on his mind to ask of the Lord. But notice all that he offers up in prayer before he gets there. Lord, I'm the cupbearer to the king, the king who's in charge of everything, the Persian Empire. and might see fit to let me go and help with what I've just learned in the first four verses about how bad it is for my people, your people, Israel. And he wants to ask, Lord, give me an opportunity, prepare me for it. But all of this comes before making that request, that supplication. And we saw that he opened with adoration. We want to see the next part now, reviewing verse 6, the second part through verse 8. After he opens with adoration, then he prays this, on behalf of himself and his people, I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Both I and my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, if ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad. among the nations. May God bless this, the reading, the preaching, the hearing, the believing, and the responding to his holy word. I'll remind you verses 1 through 4 of our chapter. The way it opens is Nehemiah hears from his brethren who've come back from Jerusalem that things are in disarray. The walls are not all built up. They're destroyed. Much has been burnt. We know from a long time ago this is Babylon, and it was God's judgment. The Persians have taken over Babylon now and give more favor than the Babylonians do to their vassal states. Israel, one of their vassal provinces of this enormous empire. And so when Nehemiah hears it, he sits down, and he weeps, and he mourns, and he fasts, and he prays to the God of heaven. And then we see his prayer open to the Lord God of heaven with an opening of adoration. And we saw that, first of all, before taking action, pause in prayer. He knows he needs to take action. He knows he's in a position to probably, he's in a place at such a time as this like Esther. But before he does, he pauses in prayer. And he had time for regular prayer. Remember, it was probably three to five months of prayer before he had an audience with the king. And then he prayed a really quick prayer. before he answered the king inquiring of him. But he has time now, and he prays, as we see, daily for probably three to five months, and so he probably prayed this prayer in some manner about 150 times. And that prayer of persistence and patience is another thing to be thinking about as an example for us to model, but in particular his prayer itself is a model for our prayers, especially when we think we need to take action and we want wisdom and God's favor in how to go about it, and we have time to be bathing it in prayer, it's good to be able to think about this model and consider following it. And so the model of the whole prayer, verses 5 through 11, remember is ACTS, the acronym ACTS. A-C-T-S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. And again, I encourage you, if you need assistance with praying, The Lord's Prayer is important, but also this is a pretty helpful quick acronym that does reflect a lot of what's in the Lord's Prayer. And if you will notice, I'm always having it in my mind's eye as I lead us in public prayer together. So Nehemiah opened with adoration. We studied that last week in verses five through the first part of verse six. Tonight we see where he continues from there. And the order, not just the part, but the order of things is important. After adoration, before thanksgiving and supplication, good idea to first offer up confession. When we think about how glorious God is, then we need to think about how much we fail him and how miserable we are. Or as Calvin points out in the Institutes, the way to study God is to study ourselves in relation to him. And the way to study ourselves is to study God. and our humility in relation to him. And in relation to his perfectness, his glory, his holiness, we consider how unholy we are and how much we don't live according to the way he calls upon us. You see, the way God's people should continue their prayers after opening with adoration is to confess their personal, family, church, and national sins. That's what we see Nehemiah doing. I give that as the main idea of our text tonight, of what to learn from it. The way God's people should continue their prayers after opening with adoration is to confess their personal, family, church, and national sins. I imagine we all come with our prayer lists, right? But what's on the list? I think mostly our supplications, our requests for God to do something. How much is on that list, first of all, of confessing our sins? all of our sins before God, sins of our family, sins of our church, sins of our nation. If we want God to take us seriously, we start with adoration. But if we want him to take our requests seriously for our prayer list, it needs to first have our confessions list. I think it's important to point out here, especially leaders. Family, church, and state, open your prayers with praise indeed, but before offering thanks and making requests for help, continue your prayers with confession. That's the message for you tonight from the text. Continue your prayers with confession. Open your prayers with praise. That is, start by acknowledging God with admiration, adoration, but then your own sense of humiliation before the Lord. Continue your prayers with confession. First of all, confess your own personal sins in prayer. Confess your own personal sins in prayer. If someone breaks the law and is given a ticket or is summoned to court But the person does not acknowledge that he or she broke the law. Have they broke it? Yeah. Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. The law simply is broken. And frankly, there's usually all kinds of signs and things out there. We're responsible citizens. We know what the law is. But if they haven't admitted to it, they still have broken the law. But the other question is, Even though it's the case they've broken the law, have they confessed this to be the case? No. If they don't acknowledge it, maybe they won't answer. They avoid dealing with it. Or they simply deny it and lie. That's not confession. They haven't confessed. They may want to try and pay the fine or they may want to ask for mercy to be let off or have a reduced sentence. But first, for any of that to happen, they need to admit they have violated the law. The Westminster Shorter Catechism 14 we're studying tonight. What is sin? Shorthand, citing 1 John 3, 4, the memory verse, sin is the transgression of the law. Sin is the breaking of God's law. It is violating his law, either by refusing to obey it, sins of omission, the want of conformity unto, or the transgressing of it, the breaking of it, the violating of his law, actually doing what he says not to do. Confession is admitting guilt and culpability. Nehemiah does that in verse six, the second part. Look here. He says, on behalf of the children of Israel, I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Both I and my father's house have sinned. And what is the sin? Verse seven, we have dealt very corruptly against thee and have not kept thy the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments which thou commandest thy servant. What is their sin? We haven't kept your commandments. We've violated and broken them again and again, which is pretty important when you consider where he opens the prayer. The end of verse five, oh Lord, you who keep covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. So what he's recognizing is, We've been a rebellious people against you, the king. Remember Deuteronomy that we're studying in the morning. It's a covenant peace treaty renewal. God is the king. We are the servants and we have said we will do what you say as you have taken care of us and provide for us. But you didn't. You rebelled against your king, God is saying. Nehemiah, rather, is saying, we admit we've rebelled against you, but more than anything, Lord, we have hated you and your rule over us. Because what is it to keep God's commandments? It's to love him. So there's an omission here of rebellion and hatred against God. When they've been called again and again to love him and obey him and keep his commandments with the appeal that it would go well with thee. And he's saying, but we haven't taken that seriously and we've just continued to break your commandments. Years and years, years and years and years you've been patient with us. You send the prophets, you send the judges. And there's times of some reformation and revival, but most of the time we just keep going literally to the idols, the idols of the world that we were supposed to get rid of in the promised land. And then we sacrifice our children literally to these idols and in other ways by sacrificing our families and our children in ways that just give them over to idolatrous worship and to those false gods. We turn away from you, so you turn your way from us, Ichabod, and you send us away. Our Ebenezer has become our Ichabod. And Nehemiah is saying, look, we need to acknowledge that before you, Lord. We first need to acknowledge how glorious you are and adore you in reverence. But next, before we go on, we have to acknowledge how horrible we are, how sinful we are, and how much we've sinned against you, our great God and King. All you've done for us, delivering us out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness, preserving us when you should have let us die there, providing manna from heaven, water from a rock, and we know from the New Testament it was from Christ himself, our great shepherd of the sheep. And yet, this is what we've done. We have brought ourself here to this place in exile. And you told us it was going to happen. And it has. And so we need to acknowledge that before we can get right with God who is ready to forgive, we need to recognize we need to be forgiven. And that we need to repent and change. So while Nehemiah does refer to his family's sins and his people's sins, and we'll return to that later, let's first notice he also admits, quote, I have sinned. He's not pretending he hasn't sinned. even though he wasn't there necessarily for all of that, but he understands he's part of this people, he identifies with this people, more on that in a moment, but he also acknowledges his own sins. He doesn't try to say it's everybody else's fault. He recognizes and comes to God as Jesus says, the person that goes away justified before God. God have mercy on me, a sinner. And so he doesn't overlook the fact he needs to recognize his own sins, just as Isaiah. In chapter 6, when he sees God who is holy, holy, holy, he says, I am unclean, and I'm among an unclean people with unclean lips. That is, we are sinners, we are corrupt, we are culpable. Derek Thomas points out in his section of his commentary here, he has the subheading, mea culpa. The Latin words that means my fault. My fault. Why are we here? Because it's my fault. It's our fault, we'll look at that, but it's also my fault. Complicity, maybe lack of concern of asking before now, how's Jerusalem? I got it pretty good as the cupbearer to the king. All different things we could consider. Nonetheless, he's willing to acknowledge his personal sins. In part, it is my fault that we're here. And that confession of sin is so important to get to the place of next thanksgiveness for mercy and reconciliation and restoration as a people and in Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple and the walls. He'll be particularly involved in the walls. And then supplication that God will give favor for all these things. We need to, after adoration, first give some time for our own list of confessions. And so I want to remind you what we did study this morning in the Sabbath class from Westminster Seminary, California, the psalm devotion on Psalm 32. First of all, it was significantly a psalm of confession. My understanding is it's very much overlapping the same context of Psalm 51, when David is confronted of his sin and he does repent and confess and seeks restoration. And he even confesses because I hadn't confessed. As you see in this psalm, my bones were wasting away. I was miserable, I was unhappy, I was ruining everything including myself for lack of confession. James says, and I should have thought to bring this in here, that we need to bring ourselves when we're sick to confession to the elders. Seek to be restored. There's an aspect of needing to confess if we expect the Lord to get us to a place of improvement. So, first confession we see in Psalm 32 verses 1 to 6. Blessed is he, and of course remember this is quoted in Romans chapter 4, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. That really does describe an unrepentant sinner who has not confessed what he needs to do to get right with the Lord. It may not be to be saved, but it may need to be saved from themselves at that moment in that situation. It goes on to say, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. We're supposed to humble ourselves under his heavy hand that we be lifted up as we confess our sins. Peter says, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I'm all dried up for lack of confession. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah, for this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. He says, Godly people will be willing to confess their sins and acknowledge the lack of confession has been messing them up, but it's also been messing up the people and has brought these consequences upon ourselves. Now I want to say, do you notice how many times he confesses sin explicitly? And he says, such shall the godly pray. But we are being trained in the world, and sadly, with the world's counsel in the church, to deny that sin and guilt even exist. And we definitely don't want to feel guilty. But what you will see here, Nehemiah says, no, we have got to confess. We have real guilt because of real sin against God. and the wages of sin is death. Ultimately, if we do not confess our sins and repent and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive us of our sins, we'll be paying for them in hell forever. If we confess our sins and trust in him to pay for them on the cross, they're paid for. But there's still an aspect going through life with sin that we can bring temporal judgment, consequences that hurt us, our family, our church, our nation, especially with a collective aspect. And the worst thing we can do is deny that we have sins as people and a nation and expect God to really fix anything as much as we try to force his hand and abuse the use of his name to do so. but be unwilling as a leader and leaders of a nation to acknowledge our personal sin against God. And that we, like everyone else, need to be forgiven if we dare utter his name and it not be in vain. And when we actually are willing to acknowledge guilt, and sin, we can have the guilty feelings removed from us. And that's the only way. Everything else is a lie. And it's why people try to booze themselves into a coma or pick their version of trying to not deal with their guilty consciences. I'll remind you what R.C. Sproul says, I believe it's in his commentary on the confession. He says, you know, I had a psychologist ask me once if I'd work for him. He says, you know, like 90% of what I'm dealing with is people with guilty consciences that need to deal with guilt, real guilt and sin. And they need a priest. He didn't take the job. That's coming from the world. And when we do, and we seek forgiveness, and we seek to be restored, and we're ready to be forgiven, acknowledging we need to be, restoration and rejoicing are the result. Just as we saw this morning in Deuteronomy 12 about getting rid of idolatry, the rejoicing of being restored, centering around the Lord, and as is people with a feast of fellowship, that is now the Lord's Supper. So Psalm 32 goes on to say in verses 10 through 11, when you do that confession, he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. How can you be upright in heart? How can you be called righteous? Because you're turning to the Lord to forgive you of your upright unrighteousness, excuse me. you're turning to the Lord to be your righteousness. And then he restores you with rejoicing. A few other things I think are helpful for us to keep in view as we think about the fact that we have to confess our personal sins. And if it's gonna really be much effective. And by the way, before I preach tonight, sitting here as we have a time of silence to prepare for worship, I did, thinking of this, Lord, please help me not to come up and preach this sermon without first confessing my sins. And I did, and I tried to think of what I needed to confess before the Lord. And if any of us will say we don't have anything to confess, you're in great danger. And you're also missing the opportunity. A few points of guidance for us in personal confession, and also it'll relate to what we talk about next. Westminster Shorter Catechism 98, first of all, simply points out that prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will in the name of Christ with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies. You know, I've commented recently, I've been in the fishbowl for a long time, and in a lot of different ways I'm in a much broader evangelical context, although I'm not sure it's so different in some ways from the Reformed world, sadly. But one thing that I recognize is it doesn't usually start with adoration, and there is hardly any, if any, confession. If anything, it's only bringing up the sins of others. That's not the way we're taught to pray. We need to be willing to confess our sins. Private sins, privately, we don't need to be thinking about necessarily airing our dirty laundry. That's not what we're saying. But we need to be willing, at least in general, to recognize, Lord, we are all sinners. I, too, am a sinner and part of the problem. That's part of what it is to pray our confession, our shorter Catechism 98 teaches us. A few things from our confession on repentance. Confession of Faith, Chapter 15, Section 5 says this. Of course, repentance very much involves confession and wanting to change, turning away from sin, and going on to life with God with new obedience. Section 5 of chapter 15 on repentance unto life says this, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particularly. And I endeavor to do some of that tonight before preaching. And we all should before we come to worship and hear the preaching. So this doesn't go right over our head. And off us like a duck's back, as it's said. There's a lot of things we just need to come clean to the Lord with that we're always kind of avoiding. It's one thing to say, oh, I'm a sinner. Yeah, I know I'm a sinner. I'm really sorry I sin all the time. But I don't actually deal with any of those sins particularly, because I'm just kind of presuming on your grace to get away with it all, and I don't plan on making a whole lot of change. No, it involves sinning that is referred to particularly. Even David is called out for his specific sins by Nathan. Now, there is a place, as David says in that Psalm 51, of recognizing, all my sins are ultimately against you, Lord. And I was conceived in sin, not that the act of procreation is sin, it's an ordinance, a creation ordinance from God before the fall. Recognition is, as soon as I'm conceived, I'm guilty of Adam and Eve's sin, and I am corrupt. and then everything else I do just proves it. So there's an aspect of recognizing, you know, general sin and that I'm part of that, but then it needs to be particularized. And I would say privately before the Lord, unless there's a point to go with James and think about confessing to the elders at times, for particular help and health that that lack of confession seems to be the cause of. I would argue in 1 Corinthians 11, talking about taking the Lord's supper improperly, that would often involve a lack of real confession and presuming upon the Lord. That's the reason some people are sick and others are dead, if you look at it. But Confession of Faith 15 on repentance unto life has something else to say in the sixth paragraph. Public sins warrant public confession. Now some of that is if you have wronged someone publicly, and we've seen an example of that in the Napark churches recently that's made national news. While that person at a very high leadership has gone to others he's sinned against and made private confession and asking for mercy, some of those same people said, this is the kind of thing that's also going to need a public acknowledgement because it was a public sin against us. And thankfully that also did happen, but that's required. So if it's against others in a public way, or it's just a public way against the church, as the confession says, bringing dishonor to the church, in some way that just needs to be acknowledged publicly, there's a place for that. And that's important because Nehemiah is making this prayer daily, and with confession daily, that isn't just praying about himself, and it's not a private prayer. It's a public prayer on behalf of his people. Though Nehemiah is in high position, he humbly includes himself, I am a sinner. Have mercy on me, a sinner. And I'm not gonna try to hide behind my high political office to get away from the fact that I too should be in sackcloth and ashes if I want you to bless the nation of my people. So James Montgomery Boyce says something I think is particularly important to hear, especially for the officers of the church, of course, including myself. He says this, here is a secret of true leadership. A true leader is not so much aware of the talents or gifts he has that others do not have. as he is of the fact that he is as weak and as capable of sin as anyone. It is when leaders forget their sinfulness that they fall into sin and lose their leadership ability. And so Nehemiah personally adores God and shows that he's the man to be used by God to lead the building of the walls. The only way he's gonna get it done is with all of God's people. The way he's gonna be able to lead them is that he is going to lead them in their own personal confession, including his own personal confession of himself being a sinner. But of course, the prayer is not just of himself, and it's not primarily about himself as it relates to this confession. Derek Kinder points out he owns to personal as well as corporate guilt. And I think it's the second part that is the most likely to offend or cause us to squirm. But it's the enormous part of the prayer, the enormous part of the confession and the context, and it has to happen if it's going to go where it needs to go. Confess your people's public sins in prayer. Confess your own personal sins in prayer. Confess your people's public sins in prayer. And I want you to remember the true story in Joshua 7 to remind us we can't think that a people as a group are not guilty and that we as part of that group are not culpable in some way, if nothing else, but by complicity or an unwillingness to acknowledge what it is and what it was. And its effects on our present and our future as a people. Chapter before, Joshua and the people defeat mighty Jericho. And all they pretty much had to do was just walk around it seven days and then holler at the end. And the walls came down and they went in and took it over. But then right after that amazing victory over a very powerful people, they got whooped by tiny AI. It's so small that God said, no, no, no, no, don't send all those people. Or maybe it's the advisors, excuse me, say this, we don't need to send everybody. This is a small, wimpy place. We just beat up on Jericho. We hardly had to do anything. Not that they weren't involved in the difficult work after the walls went down. But AI, we don't need all these people. Look what we just did to Jericho. So they send just a few people and they get beat up and people die. Their own people die. Why? Why did that happen? God's answer to Joseph as he's saying, excuse me, Joshua, why Lord? How are we going to move forward if this is what's going to happen? You promised you'd give us victory in this land over these pagan people to take it over for you. Why AI beats us up after we beat up Jericho? God's answer is this, because there's a certain person in your group who's taken things that I forbade them to take from Jericho. And then they go through the process of getting that person to confess. God brings a larger group family, narrows it down to smaller group families, and then exposes and brings out Achan. But notice, the reason that they lost is because God addresses them as a whole, and it's as if it's all their sin. His answer in verses 11 to 12, bear that out. He doesn't say, Achan hath sinned, although that is in there explicitly and they deal with Achan directly, and his family. But here's how he speaks about it in verses 11 to 12 of Joshua 7. Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken of the accursed thing. Well, they didn't all do it. It was just Achan, probably his family's complicit in it. But they're all held accountable for it. and have also, they have also stolen and disassembled also, and they have put it in even among their own stuff. Therefore, the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed. Neither will I be with you anymore, except ye destroy the accursed from among you." It's pretty scary what happens next, but the point I want to bring to our attention tonight is that one man's sin among the people brings them all down. And God brings out confession and brings them all together as a whole in needing to have this confessed and recognizing that it affects everyone. You see, the corporate nature of people includes the need for corporate confession. And that's the point of that true story in the scripture. Derek Thomas says this, sin is corporate as well as personal. You see, Nehemiah recognizes there being exiles as a people to where they are is due to their sinning as a people against God, ignoring his threat. And that's alluded to in verse eight. Look at verse eight with me. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, if ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. Now, you would think he wouldn't want God to remember that, as if he wouldn't remember it. But that leads into the next verse, and that's for next week. I'll mention it later, however. But what he's doing here is he is alluding to earlier scriptures that Moses commanded, such as in Deuteronomy 28, 15, and 64, The same thing is in Leviticus 26 verses 33 and following. In fact, Leviticus and Deuteronomy have a very long section at the end of each of those books that are holding up the two mountains, right? Will you be cursed or will you be blessed? And it has to do with whether you obey me or disobey me. but he speaks to them as a people. He even refers to Israel as his son. That relates to Jesus Christ. Hosea 11 quoted in Matthew 2, out of Egypt have I called my son, that they are a type of and he is the fullness of, the true son that obeys God perfectly. So we go to heaven and we stay in heaven, the true promised land, and we'll never be kicked out. Thank you, Jesus. But there is still this aspect of a corporate confession that's recognized. And you see it in our Westminster Confession of Faith publication that is there with our other documents. Our green book we get from the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. You're familiar with the Confession of Faith, large and shorter catechisms. I also encourage you to spend time often with the directory for the public worship of God. There's also the private one for family worship. I also highly draw to our attention often the form for the Presbyterial Church Government, which by the way was the first document they put together, which should inform everything else about church government. But there's also some other documents that are included in there. There is a witnessing tract, if you will. Name's escaping me all of a sudden, forgive me. But there are also some other documents, including the Solemn League and Covenant, where, as a nation, they make a solemn covenant together. And then there is a national covenant. And then you will see there is a document called a solemn acknowledgement of public sins and breaches of the covenant, and a solemn engagement to all the things contained therein. And sorry, I have a typo there. My computer likes to change words on me. But it was ratified by the church and the government representatives. And it opens like this, and I'm not giving it all to you, and I'm even giving you parts together, but it opens like this. We noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers of the gospel and commons of all sorts within this kingdom. No, this is not in Israel. by the good hand of God upon us, taking into serious consideration the many sad afflictions and deep distresses wherewith we have been exercised for a long time past. that we may be humbled before God by confessing our sin and forsaking the evil of our way." And it goes on a lot. You can read that. It's in your green volumes there. You can go look at it. It'd be good to look at the Solemn League and Covenant and the National Covenant that come before that inform it. But they're recognizing later we haven't lived up to this. We haven't lived up to keeping God's word the way we say we should. And all this work with the confession and the catechisms, we're not really doing it right. We're not doing it enough. We're not doing it from our hearts. And so we as a nation, and we as a national church, recognize our sin as a people before God. Oh, that we the people of the United States of America would dare to approach God like that if we actually, actually want his blessing. while we still have laws that say what he calls evil is good and what he says is good evil. While we would invoke his name like we would an idol for power, but we don't want to acknowledge we sin or need forgiveness on the whole and in particular leadership. Oh, that our nation would be willing to write a document. We do have a national proclamation of thanksgiving that still holds. We ought to have a national proclamation of confession of our sins as a nation. And in particular, in some occasions. We can start with Sabbath breaking. If I scare you with what else should I think, obviously be on our list. Verse six. Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now day and night for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, and both I and my father's house have sinned. So we see here he's confessing the sins of the children of Israel, that is the people of God, which at that time are a theocracy, which means they are a nation and a church. It's not just his own sins, not just the sins of his own father's house, it's the sins of the nation of Israel. There's a place for repentance of a church and of churches. and as a nation, willing to admit their past sins to deal with present problems caused by it, and seek God to then mercifully provide for a better future. And we should not expect one if we're not willing to do that. Now we want to recognize verse six is largely intercessory prayer. Although he does speak about the people praying like this too. Perhaps there are prayer meetings together he's leading. Perhaps they are learning from him and he's calling upon them all to be praying just as Esther called for Mordecai and everyone to have a time of fasting and weeping and prayer that God would intervene. Similarly in Persia and they're there because of their sins. They don't proclaim how good they are. They don't proclaim how they're God's nation. Because they're God's nation, they repent for failing Him so much, and recognizing it's their fault we are where we are. The same thing in verse 7. It's an intercessory prayer for the children of Israel, and he knows he speaks of we, we sinning against God. He isn't necessarily guilty of all the particulars, but they sure are as a whole. And it's the same thing in verse 7. We have sinned. Verse 8, He recognizes they are presently scattered because they have, quote, transgressed God's law. The reason we, your people, are in exile, the reason that we are having all of these problems with other nations taking us over, is because we, the people, your people, have transgressed your law. We have violated your commands, and we have acted like it doesn't matter. And in other scriptures, sometimes it speaks to us like in Zephaniah. God doesn't even know. He doesn't care. But He does. And prophet after prophet, He has warned the people, I'm going to send you away in exile. Yes, I started you here. Yes, I said this is where to place my temple and place my name. But I'm going to tear it all down and I'm going to send you away and some of you will have your eyes literally plucked out by the other leaders. Because you refuse to see and hear what the Spirit of Christ has to say to the churches and to the nation. May I say, Israel is no longer the people of God. It is Christ's people. May I also say that America is not God's people. It is a nation that may very well be destroyed if we don't get our act together in confession like Nehemiah and the people. Because he's already destroyed Babylon. And it's fallen, Revelation 18. He's already destroyed these Medes and Persians. He's already destroyed the Grecian Empire. And he's already destroyed the Roman Empire. And those are the only four on the prophecy list of Daniel. Now it's Christ and his kingdom. Nothing else. And it's a worldwide kingdom. And he doesn't need any of us. And he can take us down and take us out. Just as much as anybody else. And his kingdom will advance nonetheless. until it is truly one global nation under God at the return of Christ and the consummation of his kingdom, when the kingdoms will completely be the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Our nation is not without many of its prophets, and they are silenced, just as the prophets were before, thrown in pits, left naked. Jesus said the same thing the world will do to you. When we dare go after the idols of our church and of our nation, which are often hidden in the packaging of religiosity and even quote-unquote Christianity and even evangelicalism, although that's not a word I even like to be associated with hardly anymore. D.G. Hart, reformed professor in Michigan, says the same thing. I saw him 15 years ago say it. We ought not to use the word evangelical anymore. It means nothing. Read the book, Here We Stand, by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It means nothing anymore. We're all a joke. American evangelicalism. We're not serving God, we're trying to make him serve us. And we wonder why we're killing our children. And we wonder why we're actually paying with our tax money to change their, immunilate their bodies. And we wonder why the homosexual movement and all of its manifestations and all of its letters and extra characters is taking over our nation. It didn't start there. It started with our own sexual sins of fornication and toleration of divorce in many unbiblical ways. And all of this other stuff is coming out of that. So says Carl Truman, and I agree with him, another Presbyterian minister, whose voices, I think, on these topics are largely not heard because we, the people, don't want to think we have anything wrong with us. It's everyone else. while the majority of us don't go to church, let alone seek to obey the word of God, but want to appeal to that as if we have some favor. This may sound as if it's whatever makes you uncomfortable, certain side of things. It's an appeal to the people to wake up before we are gone. Don't think it can't happen. And let's not kid ourselves, we're a baby nation as it is. These other nations, Daniel's prophecy, longer than ours. And they took one another out as they went. The only nation now is Christ's, and it is passing around throughout the world. Taking people from each of those nations, but none of those nations will continue. We have sinned, Nehemiah says. I need to ask your favor on behalf of your people, Lord, but before I do that, I have to confess the sins of your people. And I can't expect any more of my prayer to be heard. As the Psalms say, if you let iniquity abide in your heart, the Lord will not hear your prayer. How many of these national prayers, these ridiculous monstrosity pretensions of acting like God's people, which are patting ourselves on the back and not willing to change our horrible sins in this life, are not being heard. They might be used against us. Because we won't change where it matters more if we want to see everything else change around us. It's very similar to Daniel. In captivity, Babylonian exile that came first. Chapter 9, verses 4 to 20. I'm not turning there with you for sake of time, but you might go read that tonight. Daniel 9, 4 to 20. You want to see what prayers should look like for a nation asking God's favor to bring revival and restoration. It looks like Nehemiah's prayer. It looks like Daniel's prayer. It looks like Ezra's prayer, and I remember a contemporary of Nehemiah who's gone about 12 years before to rebuild the temple first. Same kind of prayer. Let's turn there just before Nehemiah, Ezra 9. Ezra 9, 6 through 11. Ezra prays, and said, Oh my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to Thee, my God. Now he's a priest, by the way. He's a Levitical priest. Nehemiah is a governor, similar to Zerubbabel and Joshua in many of these things, and Zechariah and Haggai preaching to them to build the temple. But consider who he is and what he's saying. I can't even show my face. I'm red in the face over me and my people to even come and pray to you, God. That's not how we're praying to God in American churches. He said, Oh my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift up my face to Thee, my God, for our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespasses grown up unto the heavens. Since the days of our fathers have we been in great trespass unto this day, and for our iniquities have we, our kings and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of faith, as it is this day. And now for a little space, grace, hath been showed from the Lord our God to leave us a remnant to escape and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen, yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia. to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken thy commandments. I don't know about you, I don't think I hear prayers like that. from most of our churches, from most of evangelicalism. You don't hear it in the prayers of when politicians get together with their different figureheads representing different religions, including Christian. You don't hear confession of sin. Not really, not much. And you don't hear it particularly. We want to say how great we are. Well, that's not going to get God's great favor upon us when we are leaving things unspoken about how sinful we've been. as a people, and as churches, and parts of our history, and always, and especially now. That's the kind of prayer we need to pray, and pray that you hear from your pastors and your elders, and pray you hear from your fathers in your homes, and your husbands, and pray that our leaders of our nation, local and otherwise, pray, God have mercy on us, we sinners. That's Nehemiah's example, that's Ezra, and turn ahead to chapter 10 to see more of that, verses one to three. Now, when Ezra had prayed and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children, for the people wept very sore. This is where revival's gonna come. When the people weep over their sins as a people. And Shekiniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land. Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and such as are born of them according to the counsel of my Lord and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God and let it be done according to the law." I'm not going to get into all that's being dealt there, but you might want to look at what they're dealing with and what they do. But today, no problem. Marry anybody, the church pretty much says. No problem, divorce for any reason and remarry. No problem, regardless of what the scriptures say. This is where everything else has come from. And churches don't even want to deal with it, including Reformed churches. Although we have a chapter in our confession, chapter 24, that speaks all about it. But most of our churches don't actually do anything about it. Because we're more concerned to have butts in the pews and pennies in our purses. That's not gonna get God's favor. We should be grieving over where marriage and family has gone in our nation, and recognizing that it started with the churches, and they're changing, and thus the nation changing because of it. And everything else has been coming from it. But we wanna point to someone else. Fine. then don't expect any real thing ever to happen for revival and reformation, because when it happens, there is prayer, and then there is a rediscovery of God's law, and there is a weeping over even inadvertent and sins not knowing we were violating it. In the times of Hezekiah and Josiah, that's the kind of thing you see happen. The kings, the leaders, and the people repent. After all, remember Deuteronomy. The king was supposed to keep writing himself, by his own pen, all of Deuteronomy. Pastor Jeffrey Stuyvesant, in his message Friday night with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals on Sola Deo Gloria, why was there a reformation? He bases it mostly on Josiah, who was a child when he was made king. He says, why do you think Josiah was so well known for bringing God's people to be a place of repentance as a people? Because they rediscovered the law. And what was the law? He said, it was clearly Deuteronomy. And by the way, Nehemiah is mostly referring to Deuteronomy in his prayer. It's a rediscovery of God's law, the way he says his people should live, and a crying out for a blatant violation of it and trying to call it okay. There's a place for repentance of a church and a nation of their past to deal with the present problems caused and seek God to mercifully provide a future. And it doesn't happen when we all blame everyone else. Again, it's intercessory prayer. We ought to be praying on behalf of we God's people and we the people for transgressing God's law and calling it godly, calling ourselves godly. And again, it's not without a lot of warning of the prophets, asking for favor of God by confessing sins first so that God gives favor on behalf of those same people with the king of Persia, chapter two. As I mentioned, very similar to Daniel, very similar here to Ezra. So model your prayerful petitions, especially our leadership and in our worship. with scriptural examples of confession on behalf of ourselves as a church, on behalf of our own nation that we are complicitly part of, even for just the lack of really trying to influence it. And pray for thy mercy's sake, which is we don't deserve it. And be thankful he is a God who keeps covenant and mercy, at least with his church. Verse five, when they love him and want to review, keeping his commandments. Be willing to admit past sins as a church and a nation, like they were willing, and you see it here in Ezra a little bit, but look with me back in Nehemiah to chapter eight. See, when God gives these kinds of leaders, there needs to be this kind of people that will respond to it if God's going to restore them. Chapter 8, verse 18, and I'm going to read through chapter 9 into verse 3 to start. Verse 18 of chapter 8, Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God, and they kept the feast seven days. And on the eighth day was a solemn assembly according unto the manner. Now, chapter 9, in the twenty and fourth day of this month, the children of Israel were assembled with fasting and with sackcloths and earth upon them. And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day. And another fourth part they confessed and worshiped the Lord their God. They spent a good chunk of the day in confession. After a good chunk of the day reading the law and being willing to see we're not keeping it, we've broken it. And so have our people before us in future past generations. And so we see here, as you move ahead to verses 16 to 18, this corporate confession by God's people themselves of their sin as a people. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, and refused to obey. Neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations." They're looking back generations and generations before and saying, we've always been like this, and we still are. Have mercy. Does that sound like a prayer in the New Testament anywhere? The book of Acts, Stephen's prayer, we've always been like this. And so right now, they are rejecting you, the king of kings, Jesus Christ who has come. They crucified him. Your own people are rejecting their king. The king of the Jews, the Jews are rejecting it. Because they've always been this way. Unwilling to repent and confess their sins as a people. Thinking they're the godly ones. Thinking they're the religious ones. But they bring down God's law for the traditions of men. And Jesus calls them hypocrites. Same prayer in the New Testament. But here's the thing, here's the result of these people when they're like this. Here's the wonderful thing. Look back at chapter 8, verse 17. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths. For since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, or that is Joshua, until that day had not the children of Israel done so, See, these are things that God had commanded. And for a long time, since the days of Joshua, they haven't been doing the annual feasts and things they're supposed to do. But they do now! Because they're repenting as a people, and they're not trying to hide it and gloss it over. And look at the result. And there was very great gladness. Just as they weep in Nehemiah 8 verse 10, he says, No more need for weeping now, the joy of the Lord be thy strength. But it comes from confession, just as we saw in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51. So model your prayers like this, and Jesus Remember also in the Lord's Prayer has us praying to our Father, but includes the fifth petition following not long behind it. Shorter Catechism 105 says this, in the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, which is, and forgive us our debts. As we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins, which we are able to be rather encouraged to ask Because by His grace, we are enabled from the heart to forgive others. Do you notice it's all the language of plural words, we and our. We confess our sins in the Lord's Prayer. And it starts with the church, because the church, as we know, as Elder Maxwell often says, judgment begins in the house of God. If we want our nation to really be different, We have got to be really different. So when you go from A to the TS, that is adoration to thanksgiving and supplication, don't skip over confession. It's easy to do, and I think we largely do so. in our private prayers, let alone our public prayers as a church, let alone our prayers as a nation. And we wonder why whatever Band-Aid we put over it, nothing changes. And it keeps getting worse. But first, we have said, pray. Pause and pray before action. And first in prayer, praise. Tonight we learn what comes next. confess in prayer for yourselves, for your families, for your church, for your nation with 1st John chapter 1 verses 8 through 10 in mind. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. But you see there, if we confess, God will forgive. He'll refresh, He'll renew in all of these different personal and people groups. You see, with confession, next will come Thanksgiving, and they are tied together in verse 8, leading into verse 9. He's citing Deuteronomy, and he first says, please remember that you threaten there will be a curse, and you'll send us into exile. But he's really wanting to lead into the next part, because that's where we are. But Lord, as that has been the case, In verse 9, citing Deuteronomy, you've promised blessing when your people repent, and they confess, and they return to you. You've promised to restore us. You've promised to redeem and revive us. And that's what I'm asking for now, Lord, as I'm about to go ask that you would give us favor with the King, to restore this people, that we'd be a people that should be restored to that land. to get to that thanksgiving which is coming next. We start with adoration, opening our prayers with praise, and we continue from there with prayers of confession. This is the hard but true lesson we are to learn tonight, if we're going to take our prayers and ourselves and our church and our nation and the world, most importantly, God and the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the advancement of his kingdom, the church throughout the world, seriously. and expect a significant response of favor in our generation and on behalf of our future generations. Continue your prayers with confession. Again, that's the message for you this evening with Nehemiah's example. Open with adoration in your prayers and that is open your prayers with praise and continue your prayers with confession. Let us pray. Almighty God, we do admit that we are a person, each of us, of unclean lips among a people of uncleanness. In our families, in our church, and in this church, and in our nation, and in the world, amidst the nations. O Lord, we confess our sins, privately in particular, and publicly as a people. We do, O Lord, cry out and ask for mercy for schism, We do cry out for mercy as we would seek to be in a presbytery, that you have mercy on us for how we have abandoned and neglected that. And we ask that you give it to us now. We pray for mercy, O Lord, as we confess our sins not reaching out enough to the oppressed and to the poor, as we think mostly of ourselves and of our own benefit. Help us to remember what you say, Jesus, it is better to give than to receive. Forgive us, we may be willing to give of some of our talents and of our treasure, but we're not likely to give much of our time. Let us think about what you had us read in Luke tonight, that we should be humble guests, and we should be humble hosts, and that will be seen with whom we invite. Lord, help us not to be seeking things the way of the world, but the way of Christ, which is humility. Poor spirits, contrite hearts who tremble at your word. Oh, let us be trembling tonight, oh Lord God, in humility that you would lift us up on eagle's wings and indeed let your kingdom advance. against the gates of hell. Thankful that because Nehemiah came to you this way on behalf of his people, and just like Ezra, their people responded, so you did give favor with the kings of this world, and you gave favor to your people, your church, you rebuilt their nation, and you had it ready for the Lord Jesus Christ to come and die for us there as prophesied. and be raised for us there as prophesied, and ascended into heaven as prophesied, and give us the eternal kingdom. And not long after, as he prophesied, he destroyed the temple again, for it serves no further purpose, as your people are now the temple being spread throughout the world. We ask almighty God that you help us to be concerned with the kingdom of God, for this is what you and all your people preached. And not our own fiefdoms. And to be willing to suffer and die for the advancement of your kingdom, which is why it did spread so much in the early church. against the overlords of the world, even the last one in Daniel's prophecy, the Roman Empire. But your kingdom prevailed, and it prevailed not with the sword, but with the cross. So let us remember that we are crucified and we no longer live But Christ lives in us, and let us live with the mind of Christ, who leads us to pray, among other things, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, and all your people said, amen. Thanks again for listening to the media ministry of the Puritan Reformed Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California. If you are blessed by our sermons and would like to help keep our little church going as a ministry partner with your cheerful gifts, please click on the Give button at the top of any of our sermon audio pages to support us with your online donation. Or visit our website at puritanchurch.com and click through the Give button at the top right of your screen. And if you prefer to send your support through the mail, please make your check out to Puritan Reformed Presbyterian Church and send it to Puritan Reformed Presbyterian Church, 6374 Potomac Street, San Diego, California 92139. Thank you.