I don't normally get clapped for. See what happens at the end. No hunt camp here. Hunt camp. I love hunt camp. All right. Well, it's good to be here and I trust that you've already enjoyed and have profited from the various expositions and lessons from the Book of Nehemiah. I have been assigned to consider the themes that we have in Chapters 7 and 8 of Nehemiah, so that will be our attention this morning. The City of Law in Order. The City of Law in Order. That's the topic. and the theme will be glorifying God through our obedience. I want to begin reading from chapter 7. We're going to read a portion here beginning at verse 4 as we draw our attention to this city of law and order. Let us hear the word the inspired word of God. Now the city was large and great, but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded. And my God put into mine heart to gather together the nobles and the rulers and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found a register of genealogy of them which came up at the first and found written therein. These are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity of those that had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away and came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, every one unto this day, who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Rahamiah, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Bilshah, Miss Pereth, Bigvi, Nahum, Bahana. The number, I say, of the men of the people of Israel was this. The children of Parosh, 2,172. The children of Shephetiah, 372. The children of Arah, 650 and two. The children of Pahav Moab, of the children of Jeshua and Joab, 2,818. The children of Elam, 1,250 and four. The children of Zatu, 840 and five. The children of Zakiah, 703 score. The children of Benuai, 640 and eight. The children of Beba'ai, 620 and 8. The children of Aska, 2,320 and 2. The children of Adonikum, 600, 3 score and 7. The children of Bigvai, 2,000, 3 score and 7. The children of Adin, 650 and 5. The children of Ater, of Hezekiah, 90 and 8. The children of Hashem, 320 and 8. The children of Beziah, 320 and 4. The children of Harpeth, 112. The children of Gibeon, 90 and 5. The men of Bethlehem and Nataphah, 104 score and 8. The men of Anathoth, 120 and 8. The men of Beth-Mapheth, 40 and 2. The men of Kiriath-Jirim, Kephiah and Beroth, 740 and 3. The men of Rama and Geba, 620 and 1. The men of Mikmas, 120 and 2. The men of Bethel and Ai, 120 and 3. The men of the other Nabal, 50 and 2. The children of the other Elam, 1,250 and 4. The children of Harim, 320. The children of Jericho, 340 and 5. The children of Lod, Hadid and Ono, 720 and 1. The children of Sinaha, 3,930. Following, we have the genealogy of the priests and chapter 7 ends with these words. So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethanims, and all Israel dwelt in their cities. And when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities. And thus ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. A city of law and order. But I want to begin thinking about why the fact of the city is so important. When we come to any book of the Bible, it is important that we discover how this book contributes to the message of redemption. Remember the Lord Jesus gave us the instructions, at least to those on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection. that all of the Old Testament scriptures, the law, the writings, the prophets, all of those spoke about him, which tells us then if we can come to any particular book, any particular portion of the Old Testament scriptures, and this includes the New Testament as well by application, implication, and we don't find the message of Jesus, what it reveals to us about who Christ is or about what Christ has done, then we ultimately have missed the message. On the surface, it's not immediately clear, is it, what Nehemiah says about Jesus. There are in this book 406 verses, and there are three different types of materials. We have history, historical narrative, 146 verses tell us some kind of a story. And those stories are interesting. Those stories are captivating. As we see the conflict, we see the tension as Nehemiah leads these people to rebuild the walls. Fascinating stories. Then there are prayers. 46 verses, that's 11%. 36% of the book gives to us that history. 11% of the book records for us prayers. Prayers that are edified, prayers that are instructive. Some prayers are lengthy, some prayers are short and to the point. That could be edifying as we reflect upon what it is to put our petitions before the Lord. But 214 of the verses, 53% of this book is what we read in our opening reading, names and numbers. It's kind of like reading, I started to say like reading a telephone book, but I don't think you people know what a telephone book is, do you? Back in my generation, right, when we didn't have all of these devices and everything that you know in life on that little phone, we would have delivered to our homes these thick books. And in this thick book would be the numbers and the addresses of everyone that lived within our city, everyone that lived within our county. Those were called phone books. You have all that information now in your contact list, all right? Contact list? Yes. You have your contact list. Just start reading your contact list and see how exciting that is. Names and numbers. Names and numbers. And over half of this book, 53%, is just giving to us names and numbers. And I say on the surface. It's not particularly clear as to what this is going to reveal to us about the Lord Jesus. But what we read is just as inspired, it's just as infallible, it's just as authoritative as John 3.16 that tells us that God so loved the world. But it must be profitable. If we believe in inspiration as Paul defines it for us in 2 Timothy, we believe that all scripture is breathed out, all scripture inspired by God, and therefore it is to be profitable. It's profitable for doctrine, what we are to believe. It's profitable for correction, how we are to live for righteousness. There is to be a profit in all of God's word and even in these genealogies that we have just read. together with all of these strange and sometimes unpronounceable names. And I'm sure that I mispronounced some of them. I could read them well in Hebrew, but the English transliterations are somewhat difficult for me. But I tell this to would-be preachers, when you come to all of these names, just say it with authority and nobody will know that you're wrong, all right? All these names, all these names, things that you tend to skip over. Things that you tend to skip over when you come to your Bible reading, I trust that all of you are involved in daily Bible reading and reading your Bible through on a regular basis. My wife and I do this, and I'll confess that even sometimes when we come to the genealogies, and it's my wife's turn to read, we skip over some of those because otherwise it would be so comical as I listen to her pronounce some of these names. But there are a profit. We know that the Messiah, that Jesus, is the hope for mankind. The first promise of Jesus was that he would be the seed of the woman. And as the seed of the woman, he would destroy, he would crush the head of the serpent. And we have that developing theme of this seed. Who is Jesus going to be? Who is this Redeemer going to be? We know that he's the seed of the woman. And then he's the seed of Abraham. And then he's the seed of David. And he comes to us and as we open up the New Testament with those genealogies, proving that Jesus indeed is the Messiah of God, the long-awaited, the long-awaited redeemer, the long-awaited reverser of the curse of sin. Now, when we come to Nehemiah, everything appears to be hopeless as far as the coming of Jesus. We know that Jesus was going to be of the seed of David. We know that he was going to be a king of David's line. But when we come to Nehemiah, there's no king. The house of David is defunct, had been so for now several years. Remember the captivity and Jeremiah had predicted that the people would lose their king and that they would be in captivity for those 70 years. And no king is upon the throne of David. How can Jesus come? How can he be the seat of David if there's no evidence of the seat of David? Had to be a David if there was going to be a Christ, and now there appears to be no one sitting on David's throne. But Jeremiah also said that this city, this city that was destroyed by the Babylonians, This city that was razed to the ground, the temple, the walls, all destroyed by the Babylonians because of the sin of the people. That was part of God's judgment in expelling them from the land and destroying the city of Jerusalem. But Jeremiah also said that the city was going to be rebuilt. And when you come to Daniel, Daniel chapter 9 makes an interesting statement that very obviously is dealing with the Messiah and he says the Messiah is going to come into this city. There had to be a city. There had to be a city if there was going to be a Jesus. If Jesus was going to come and fulfill the law of God and fulfill the word of God, there had to be a city in place. The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus had to fulfill every demand of the law. So certain things had to be in place for Jesus to come. There had to be a Jewish community of that adhere to the law of God. There had to be a physical place with a population for Jesus to come suddenly into the temple and to make his way into Jerusalem. There had to be a place for the fullness of time to come. But all that seemed to be in jeopardy now as Nehemiah is called by God to this place. The city was in ruins. The walls were down. The temple had been built some years now, but the city of Jerusalem was still in disarray. The city was large, but as we read at the beginning of our text, there were few people. There were few people, but there had to be a people in place. There had to be a city in place. There had to be a temple in place for the Lord Jesus to come. So the rebuilding of the walls. The rebuilding of the walls, the rebuilding of Jerusalem was part of God's purpose and part of God's redemptive plan to make the way for Jesus to come. Now my assignment, I say, is to talk about this repopulated city. this repopulated city and we read something and I read those genealogies on purpose because here are some of the people, here are some of the, here's the proof, here's the evidence that this city indeed was going to be populated and was populated by a people obedient to the call of God and all of this in preparation I say for the coming of Jesus. Now our theme then today is glorifying God through obedience. And there are three lessons that I want us to focus on in this theme that come particularly now from chapter 8. So our attention for these next moments will be in the lessons from chapter 8 on how to glorify God through obedience. We have these people, all of those names, All of those names in chapter 7 were people that were obedient to God, that were obedient to God's call to repopulate this city, which I say was a crucial, integral part to God's redemptive plan and God's redemptive purpose. So it may not be the most exciting reading. I know we all have our favorite verses. We all have our favorite psalms. We all have our life verses. How many here have a life verse? If you have a life verse that you claim that the Lord is, yeah, some of you do, some of you don't. My guess is that, who had the life verse? It's not Nehemiah 7, is it? No, it's not from Nehemiah 7 with all of these names. These aren't the kind of verses that contribute to life verses. But together I say they are absolutely essential, absolutely essential to the progress of God's redemptive purpose. So when I read those names, when I read those names that I can't pronounce, the thought ought to be here comes Jesus. Here comes Jesus in God's eternal redemptive plan and purpose. But we come to Chapter 8. The children now were gathered, we saw at the end of Chapter 7, in the seventh month into the city. And the focus in Chapter 8 is going to be upon the Word of God. Obedience to God, if that's our theme here, can be understood only as we think of it in terms of God's Word. God sets the law. God reveals what are his expectations and what are his purposes for us and obedience, then it's some abstract, airy-fairy thing. No, it is very concrete, it's very objective. As God points us to his law, to his word, this is what pleases me. obey me. And all of that's contained, all that's revealed to us in the Word of God. And God expects His people, God expects His people to be obedient to that Word. And it's obedience, I say, that in one way glorifies God, it pleases God, and that ought to be the desire of every believer. And God, I say, doesn't leave us guessing, does he? He doesn't leave us guessing as to what it is that pleases him. I use this illustration sometimes. I had two boys. They're men now, grown up. But when my boys were growing up, When my boys were growing up, I believe they loved me. I think my boys loved me. I think my boys respected me. And I think my boys had a desire to do those things that pleased me. Yeah. So in order to help them, you know, I didn't want my kids waking up in the morning, you know, getting out of bed in the morning and say, you know, I really want to please dad today. I want to please dad today. But you never know what the guy wants. You never know what he wants. So to take away that frustration, I established for my boys what we called Barrett Law. We called it Barrett Law. This is how Barretts live. And so long as you live within this sphere that we identify as Barrett Law, I'm going to be pleased. I didn't want them guessing as to what it was that pleased me. And there were times, yes, there were times, yes, when they wanted to do things and they would come to me and they would say, Dad, can I do this? So-and-so is doing that. So-and-so is doing that. And I said, what's his name? What's his name? Is his name Barrett? No? Well then, that settles it, right? He's not a Barrett, so I don't care where he lives, but you're a Barrett. This is how Barretts live, right? Now God, God doesn't leave us guessing as to what it is that pleases Him. We have a desire as a believer, every believer ought to have a desire in his heart to do those things that are pleasing unto the Lord. And God reveals to us his word. There's a connection then obviously between the word of God and the very possibility that we have to obey God in order to glorify him. Now I say that's the attention that we have in chapter 8. We see first of all that if we're going to glorify God, we have to desire the word. Look at verse 1. And all the people gathered themselves together as one man. into the street that was before the water gate, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel." It was the idea of the people to bring this word to their attention. They desired the word. Remember, Peter says that we are to desire that word, that milk of the word, or to desire it. It ought to be the treasure, indeed, of our heart and soul. So the people asked, to hear the Word of the God. And there's an inherent power, inherent power in the Word. Let's read verses 2 and 3 here as well. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both men and women, and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday. before men and the women and those that could understand and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law, an inherent power. There is an inherent power in the word of God. They heard it read, no exposition, no preaching, no explanation at this point, just the pure and the simple reading of the word of God. They wanted to hear it read. Now, private readings in that day were not so easy. We have the advantage of so many ways of having the Bible, right? I've got a Bible here. I see Bibles there. Some of you have Bibles on your phones and on your computers. We have Bibles all over the place, so accessible to us, our Bibles. But in those days, that was not the case. There were not family Bibles, so they had to come and hear the Word of God read, as these copies were not available. But all the attention that they gave to it, What an eagerness they had from the morning until the midday. Hours. They stood there for hours just listening to the Word of God read. Inherent power in the Word. We have our liturgy, right? You go to church on Sundays and we go through this liturgy and every Lord's Day there's a law that is read. No exposition of it, just the reading of the law. The pastor will normally read another portion of Scripture that later on in the service he will expound and preach from, but just the reading. This is part of Protestant, historic Reformation liturgy that there is the reading, the pure reading of the Word of God. without exposition, without explanation, just to have our minds set upon thus saith the Lord. They read it. And they heard it read from morning to midday. Hours. Attention given to it. Now in contrast, you can't help but think of the contrast here between What they were doing, what was available to them, and I say was available to us. Did have personal copies of the Word. Had to hear it read by the preacher. How many copies? How many copies of the Bible do we have? I don't know how many I have. I have a Bible that I teach from. Hardback, this is the one. This is my teaching Bible. I have a Bible that I preach from. I have a Bible that I take to church when I'm not preaching. I have a Bible that I take to preach at different churches. I have Bibles that, in my house, I have a Bible by my chair. If we have our Bible time, my wife and I, if we have it in the den, my Bible is there. I've got a different Bible that I keep on the kitchen table if we're having our Bible time there. I have Bibles that I don't read. I've got Bibles all over the place. So readily. I've got them on my computer. I must say I don't use it, but it's on my computer. I've got it on my phone. I don't use it because I can never figure out quite how to find it. By the time I find it, he's gone on to something else. But it's there in different versions, different versions. I've got Hebrew Bibles. I have Greek Bibles. Yeah. So readily available. But how do we treat it? What's our attitude about the Word? Here were people that did not have their own personal possession of God's Word, but they would listen for hours upon end. They would listen just to it read. But we tend to take it for granted, don't we? It ought to be a treasure for us. It ought to be a treasure for us. David says in Psalm 19 that the word, that the law was like honey. It was that which is sweet, that which was his desire like treasure. Oh, God help us. God help us to appreciate, to be appreciative. of the fact that we have in our possession so easily and so readily the Word of God. And pay attention to it. There were no, there were no, I started to say watch lookers, I don't guess they had watches. I don't know if they carried sundials around or how they knew, but they weren't watching and they weren't concerned with the passing of time. How many of you on a Sunday service, as you go through the liturgy and the preacher begins to preach, do you kind of peek down at your watch, or are you just getting close to, all right, here's the stand-up hymn, so we know we're getting close to the end, all right? Tell me. I see that look. I'm a preacher. I see that look on the face, right? That little glance down at the watch. Okay, okay. It's going to be over here pretty soon. It's going to be over pretty soon. We get so impatient, don't we? Attention. Let us learn to love. Let us learn to love and to give that attention to the inherent power in God's Word. And there was an interest in what it meant. They heard it preached. They heard it preached, not only read, but they heard it preached as well. Look at verses 7 and 8. Here all of these priests again in the last part of the verse, the Levites caused the people to understand the law and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading. So not only just the reading of the word, that was an inherent power, but now there comes the exposition, there comes the preaching, the explanation of that word. What's the relevance of this word now? There were some things that were hard to understand. And so God had given them the priests to be the teachers of the law, to explain those things and to interpret those things and to show the people the implications and the applications of those things to their personal life. They heard it preached. The idea of giving the law distinctly and giving the sense. We could sum that up as the preaching, the preaching of the word. Oh, it could have been translated as well here in part, you know, the Bible was given in Hebrew, but most, by this time, most of these people were speaking Aramaic, so there may have been a translation in part of that word so that they would understand it distinctly. The point is that there was the gifts that God had given the priests, to be the teachers, to be the expositors of this word to them. This was the law of Moses. It's the law of Moses. I don't know, in your study of Nehemiah right now, did you talk about the date of the book and all? We date Nehemiah here to the 5th century BC, it's in the 400s BC. Moses, when did Moses write? Moses wrote in the 15th century, a thousand years earlier. The book of Moses was a thousand years earlier. than when these people were hearing it read. A thousand years is a long time. Things change. Culture changes. Circumstances change. But there's something about God's Word, notwithstanding how old it is, that is never outdated. It's never outdated. The message is constantly relevant, independent of culture, independent of time. A thousand years. But there were things, I say, that were hard to understand, so God gave gifts. God gave the gift of the priesthood to the people to enable them to understand the relevance, to help them bridge the distance between the then of a thousand years earlier and the now in which they were living before God. And for us, for us, it's even It's even more so, isn't it? A thousand years different. When I read the book of Moses, it's 3,000. More than 3,000 years ago. But yet it's a living book. It's a living Word. But there are going to be things that are difficult to understand. You read the book of Moses, you read the Law of God, and there are going to be things there that seem to be outdated for us. There are things there that seem to be Irrelevant to us. Things there in the Old Testament, the law of Moses that, you know, I mean, what do we have to bother? You read Leviticus 19, yeah, and it talks about, it talks about how you shave, or if you're a man. It says don't round off the corners of your beard. Don't round off the corners of your beard. Because why? Why that you do not round off the corners of your beard? Because I'm the Lord your God. Okay? I look at most of you guys out there. You're clean shaven. Maybe it's out of necessity right now. I don't know if you're old enough to. I don't know. I don't see a lot of beards out there. A few, right? A few. I've got one. I've got this little whatever they call it here. I tried growing it here, but I'm a little sketchy on the cheeks, so it looks funny. So I don't grow the full thing. But still, I trim it once in a while when my wife reminds me that it's time to trim that beard. The Lord says, don't round off the corner of your beard. Let your beard be long and scraggly, because I'm the Lord your God. Are we all disobedient then? Are we disobedient to what God is saying at that point? What is the relevance of that to us? When you wear your clothes, don't wear garments of mixed material. Don't you ever think of putting linen on with wool. Don't mix your garments. There's a separation there. in material. All of the stuff that we have are synthetic. I think this shirt's cotton or something. I don't know. It comes from Cabela's in my life. Most of my stuff comes from Cabela's, right? Most of my stuff comes from Cabela's. I've often thought if I had half the money that I spent at Cabela's, I'd be a rich man, right? But I'm not rich, so you can never... I don't know what it is, but my pants are something different. Are we violating God's law? It's things that appears to be irrelevant, outdated to us. It's a long time ago. So God, in this living book, has a message, I say, that is timeless, application that is going to look different. The application of the truth may look different now than it did then, and that's why God has given to his church teachers, why God has given to his church preachers. to help us bridge that distance between the then of so many years ago and the now in which we are living. Preachers, God's gift to us, are you thankful? Are you thankful for the ministers that God has given to you that preach this word to you? that show you the relevance of this word to your life, to what this is to look like. Yeah, it looked like that to Moses. Maybe in Moses's day, maybe in Moses's day, holiness looked like having a scraggly beard. It may look different today, but holiness is still the requirement that God has for his people. God has given to us, I say, preachers, teachers, pastors. as His gifts to us, as His gifts to us to help us to understand, to understand the relevance. Now, that's the first point. That's the first point that if we're going to glorify God in our obedience, we have to desire the Word because that will define for us what it is indeed that we are to obey. Second thing is that we are to respond to the Word. We are to respond to the Word. Look at verses 5 and following here, verse 5. Ezra is up on this pulpit. It was made for this purpose. He's been reading. And as Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, amen, amen, with lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. So part of glorifying God, we hear the word, we come to understand the word, but now we must respond to the word. Respond to the word, first of all, with reverence, with reverence. They stood up. They stood up. When the book of God was opened to people out of respect and out of reverence for that word, they stood up and that was just a gesture of that reverence. The attitude certainly more important than the form, but they became overwhelmed with the notion that this is not just any book. This is not just a declaration of a man's ideas. This is the very Word of God. This is God's Word. And as we hear it, no matter what it is, even when we read those genealogies, and name after name after name and date after date, we're saying, so what, so what? You think of this. This catches me short of many, many times. When I read these things that appears to have no apparent significance of all the things. If all the things God could have said, of all the things God could have said, why did he say this? Of all the things God could have said, could not have God simply said there in chapter 7, there was a whole bunch of people that came to live in the land. That would have satisfied us, right? But no, name after name and number after number. Why? Why? The details. The details are revealing to us something about God, that God pays attention. God's looking for obedience generally, but He looks for that and He sees that individually as well. These names, these peoples, of all the things, are reverent. This is not just any book. This is not just any word. A reverence, a reverence as we open this book, as you read this book, as you hear this book read. that this is the Word of God and there is to be that response of reverence. And then there was the response of agreement. When they heard it read, all the people answered, Amen. Amen. With the lifting up of their hands, Amen. Amen. I teach Hebrew. I teach Hebrew. I've been teaching Hebrew for longer than all of you combined have been alive probably. I'll give you a Hebrew lesson. I'm going to teach you a Hebrew word today. It's not going to hurt you. Hebrew word. Can you say this? Amen. Say it. Amen. You're not charismatic. I felt like a Baptist there for a moment, right? Amen. Amen. Amen is just a Hebrew word. Amen is simply a Hebrew word spelled out here in English for us that means firm, that means established, that means reliable, that means true. And as the people then heard the Word of God read, as they heard the God read, they were saying, it's true! It's true! I agree with what this is saying. How can you disagree with what God says? There is that assent and there is that agreement. Amen. Amen. And the lifting up of hands. The lifting up of hands becomes again a gesture of dependence. A gesture of dependence as the psalmist lifted up his hands in prayer, expressing his consciousness of the need that he has for God to intervene, for God to bless, for God to speak. Agreement. And then there was worship. They bowed down their heads. Now, when they see themselves in relationship to that law of God, the reverence and the agreement, what could they do but now accept a worship? The attention, the focus is upon the Lord and God Himself, ascribing the value unto Him, a worship of the one true and living God. They responded with worship and they responded with their heart and with their hands. There's been an emphasis already upon the head, the understanding. You see references to their understanding in verse 8. You see references to their understanding in verse 12. They understood the words that were declared unto him. Verse 13, they understood the words, the law. Obedience starts in the head. Obedience starts in the head. I have to know in my head what it is that God expects. I have to know in my head what it is that God demands. Starts in the head. Starts with thinking. And how we think then is going to affect how we live. Right thinking. I make this statement very often that right thinking determines and dictates right behaving. how we think the mind will dictate the heart and the hands. And we see then the emphasis upon the heart and the hands. Look at verse nine. As the people were taught, they said, the day is holy unto the Lord our God. Mourn not nor weep. They were weeping, they were mourning, they were under conviction. All right? The Lord brought them under conviction. When they heard the word of God read, they were weeping. But that's not where they were to stay. The word brought them to misery. Okay, that's good. It's good to feel our misery as we see our failures before the law of God, our sin before the law of God. But that is not where God wants us to stay. He wants us to stay in misery. The prophet now, the priest now say, okay, now then rejoice. All right, rejoice. Rejoice and now turn this misery, as it were, into joy. Go your way, verse 10. Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet. Those are images there of joy and celebration. Now, again, doesn't sound real appealing to me, right, to eat the fat. To eat the fat, that's not real appealing to us. We tend to cut the fat off and throw it aside. But the imagery here, the fat was always that which associated with the rich part, the prosperous part. Enjoy prosperity, if you will. Enjoy the prosperity, a picture of blessing, a picture of celebration as they feasted upon God's Word. As they feasted upon God's Word, Ezekiel was shown those rolls, those scrolls, and God said, eat it. And when he ate it, it was sweet. It was sweet to him. It was sweet. The taste, assimilating that Word unto themselves, but the effect that it has to transform us. to transform us from misery, indeed, to joy. And then the hands were involved as well. Hands were involved as well. See that in verse 10. Send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy unto the Lord. Neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Feel your misery, feel your conviction, but see the transforming power that there is in the Word of God to bring you to a place of fellowship, a place of experiential joy with the Lord. And that's going to then, in your hands, you're going to share that with others. You're not going to keep it to yourselves, to share the blessing. Now, that exercise of the hands brings us to our final thought, which I think we should have had a moment ago. But the final thought is this. If we are to glorify God through our obedience, we desire the Word. Yeah, that's first. We respond to the Word and then finally we live the Word. We live the Word. We bring the Word of God into the actual experience of our daily lives. This is obedience. This is obedience, living what we say we believe. James tells us that we're not to be doers of the word, not to be hearers of the word only, but also doers of the word. How foolish it is. And he says, how foolish it is for a man to look himself in the mirror, right? To look himself in the mirror and see that his hair is a mess and that this has to be fixed and that has to be fixed, that his beard needs to be trimmed. But he says, I, what, and he just goes and leaves everything. That's a foolish thing, James said. So it is if we hear the Word of God. If we hear the Word of God and then go away forgetting what we have heard without doing something about what we have heard, it's a very foolish thing. We are to live in the reality and the experience of what God's Word declares. I say live the Word. Now, we see this demonstrated in a very subtle way, but nonetheless I think very important. You'll notice back in chapter 8 verse 2, see at the end of chapter 7 as well, that all this taking place right now was in the seventh month. In the seventh month, they populated the city. In the seventh month, they began to hear the word of God read. Now look at verse 14. And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the Feast of the Seventh Month. It was the seventh month when they were gathered here, when they were listening, and as they read they learned that God expected in the seventh month for them to celebrate this Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles was one of the celebrations and the liturgical cycle of Israel's year, that they were to commemorate the wilderness experience. where tabernacles there is not referring to a place of worship, but rather like a booth, a tent, where in the wilderness they lived in temporary dwellings. And they were to commemorate that year after year at the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tents or Huts. A reminder right during those 40 years of wilderness wanderings when they had to live in tents day by day of their absolute and total and other dependence upon the God. Every day they depended upon God for their food. The manna came day after day after day. The only way they could live was the fact that that bread, that manna was supplied for them. They knew what it was to depend upon God for their daily bread. For those 40 years, for those 40 years, their garments didn't wear out. For 40 years, their garments didn't wear out, their shoes didn't wear out. I used to think, you know, when my kids were, when my boys were living with us, you know, It would have been a blessing in one way to be a parent in the time of wilderness wanderings, right? For 40 years, the shoes didn't wear out. When my kids were growing up, I was buying tennis shoes every two weeks, I think, as their feet would grow and whatever. But no, for 40 years, they could wear the same shoes. For 40 years, the same clothes. You say, I don't like that. Well, hey, a parent would, right? A parent would. A reminder, a reminder of the fact that this was a time of dependence upon God. This is what God expected, the seventh month, and they looked at their calendar and said, wait, it's the seventh month. We're supposed to be doing this. God wants us to do this. And so they brought in To this context, the celebration is what God wants, seventh month, okay, this is the seventh month, we're going to do it. That we're living the word. Ironically, yeah, ironically, I just thought of this this morning, this is the seventh month for us, right? July, seventh month. A reminder to us very subtly here that we are to live in the reality. Whatever it is that God expects of us, whatever God commands of us, we are to bring that into the experience of life, all of life. The Word of God's a light to our path. He reveals to us the sphere of life that's pleasing to God. Obeying God. My time is gone, I'm sorry. Obeying God. Obeying God becomes the way where we can impart, glorify God. We're to enjoy God. We're to glorify God. And part of how we glorify God is by obeying Him. And the only way we can obey Him is by knowing the Word and allowing the Spirit of God to apply that Word to our hearts. May God help us so to do. We're going to pray and then we're going to sing a closing psalter, number 38. But let's commit this to the Lord. O Lord, we're thankful for the word that thou has revealed to us. We're thankful, Lord, that you have not left us without a word. We feel ashamed so often that we have the word of God so readily available to us in so many ways and so many forms, but yet we tend to set it aside and neglect it. O Lord, give us a love for thy word. Bless these young people. Lord, bless these young people that in their youth that they might be renewed in their strength, but the joy of the Lord would be their strength. We pray that that would create within their heart a love for Jesus, a love for the word. And we pray that this camp experience would be that which contributes to that spiritual growth. Oh Lord, bless thy word to our hearts we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Psalter 38, Psalter 38. And if everyone's keeping up, great questions there. Any questions down in the post bar at all.