Calvary Assembly of God
Bringing Faith, Hope and Love to Life ~ 2600 Shipley Road, Wilmington, Delaware 19810 ~ 302-478-1275


Nehemiah - "Crying Out to God"
by Leonard A. Deane Jr.

Let us pray: Lord I acknowledge you and Praise your mighty name. Lord you are the King of Kings, The Lord of Lords. Father God, we do serve a mighty God and You are the Alpha and Omega. You’re the God who created us. You created heaven and earth. Lord thank you again and again for peeling away MY layers of selfishness. I confess that I don’t keep proper perspective and priorities in worshiping you and reading your word. Lord help me this day to follow you more closely. Lord I pray for my Brothers and Sisters and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit our hearts and minds will be open to your word today. Imprint on their hearts the need to confess their sins. Lord I pray that my words and thoughts are pleasing to you and I ask for your Holy Spirit guidance. Amen.

Can you imagine spending six hours in the Word, and another six hours in confession, praise, worship and repentance? It’s difficult for me to sit in a service for an hour, let alone twelve. In Nehemiah the Word of the Lord was changing them and transforming their actions. The Word has the same power for us today, it changes and transforms us. Are you ready to allow the Lord to change you? Are You? Are you ready to allow the Lord to transform you? Are You? This is not a monolog it’s a dialog. I believe when we confess our wrongdoing to God and praise him for his compassionate mercy, worship the Living Christ and repent we will be in the place for the Lord to use us to our full potential for His kingdom.

Nehemiah 1:3-10

The Place to Start is Confessing Our Sins. Nehemiah 9:1-2

The first two verses record the occasion when this prayer was uttered. It follows the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was observed in Israel for the first time for many years, following the recovery of the city of Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the walls, the resetting of the gates, and the restoring of order and some degree of prosperity to the city. That was a time of celebration but this occasion sounds a different note, as we see in the opening verses of Chapter 9.

This is clearly a time of sober self-judgment. It is a time when the people expressed their feelings of shame and grief. Do you have shame and grief to confess today? DO YOU? They confessed their sins and their father's sins as well. They were aware that the evil of one generation is often passed along to the next. The cause of this sudden change in the behavior of the Israelites is not given until the end of this prayer. Let us look ahead to Nehemiah 9:36-37…tells us what it was that caused them to mourn and fast and to confess their sins.

Nehemiah 9:36-37 addressing themselves to God they said…

Here the people recognized clearly the connection between the evil in their own hearts and lives and the terrible conditions of slavery and bondage in which they exist.

In this prayer of the Levites in Nehemiah 9 we learn how to recover from that kind of a situation. What can we, the people of God do to help change this condition? As we read in these opening verses, they gathered before God to pray: They fasted. They confessed. They wept. They asked for mercy. They kept it all strictly within the family of Israel. They did not go outside it to involve foreigners.

They did not blame others for their plight. They looked to themselves and "confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers."

Fasting represents their hunger for knowing God was more pressing, than the need to satisfy any physical hunger. With their loose fitting garments of sackcloth, they were expressing a profound sense of mourning, grief and humiliation because of their sin. By throwing dust or ashes on their heads, the people were symbolically identifying with death, uttering a feeling of the lowest depths.

Nehemiah 9:3

First things first, we need to confess our wrongdoing to God and praise him for his compassionate mercy, worship the Living Christ and repent.

The most important aspect of prayer is not asking God for what we need. That is only a part of our prayers. It is acknowledging who God is, praising His mighty name, and reminding us whom we are talking to. Prayer is not for us to inform God what we want, but to remind us what a mighty God we serve. We are speaking to the very God who created heaven and earth.

As we read on we will see that the Levites divided themselves into two groups. Some were standing on the stairs leading up to the Water Gate and others were on a platform on the opposite side of the square. These groups were calling back and forth to the people, one group confessing the sins of the people, the other praising God.

We have, then, a kind of chorus: one group confessing sin, another group answering them, confessing their wrongdoing to God and praising God for his compassionate mercy, worshiping God and repenting.

God is the keeper of promises. He is the One who initiates the call of man to himself. The New Testament tells us that not one of us would ever seek God if he had not first sought us. HE is the one who awakens in us feelings and desires to draw near to him and to find out the truth of where we came from. These eternal questions throb in the minds and hearts of us today and they are planted by the Holy Spirit of God. It is HE who calls, chooses and draws us to HIMSELF. Not one of us would be here today if it were not for that merciful, sovereign call of God. Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last days" (John 4:44). We are here today because the Spirit of God in wondrous grace has drawn us irresistibly to himself.

Have you ever thanked God for the victories you have achieved in your life; your job; your achievements at work; your spouse and children; your health; have you stopped to praise God for His goodness? That is the right thing to do. Recognize that God is with you. God's hand is in what you do. Give him glory for that.

But the other group now comes in to give us the other side of the picture. Then the confessors come in again, in Nehemiah 9:28.

What a marvelous picture of the patience of God! This is the way God works. He lets us taste the results of our evil. He gets our attention sometimes by letting sickness come or disaster strike. But it is only in order that we might hear what he is saying and be delivered. He warns us in order to keep us free.

Nehemiah 9:29

Again they are confessing the mistakes of a previous generation. They see clearly how much of their own agony and hurt has come from the mistakes their fathers made before them. But then the praise group comes in: The only answer to our Lord is to confess our wrongdoing to God and praise him for his compassionate mercy, worship the Living Christ and repent.

These Levites teach us how to confess. Notice how specific they are. "We did wrong. You have acted faithfully but we did wrong. We did not pay attention to your laws. We did not hear your words. We turned our backs. We became stiff-necked and refused to listen.

Prayer for confession of sin is important because God has called us to come to Him, seeking His forgiveness. Sin separates us from God; He is perfect and cannot tolerate the presence of sin.

Confessing sins, such as Arrogance (pride, haughtiness, controlling); Hatred, (racism, jealousy, evil acts); Idolatry, (Anything that is more important than God to you); Adultery/lust (pornography is included); Addictions (Alcohol, drugs, sexual); mistreating our spouse and children.

We are in the same place today. We see the same two themes at work:

  1. First, the rebellion and indifference of men.
  2. Second, the gracious, loving patience of God; until he takes action.

With the guidance of the Holy Spirit we now have an opportunity to confess our wrongdoing to God, praise him for his compassionate mercy, worship the Living Christ and repent.

Be led by the Holy Spirit…

  • You can sit in quietness before the Lord and confess your sins.
  • You can speak out for all to hear and confess your sins.
  • You can write your confession.

Confess, worship, praise and repent.

Let us be led by the Holy Spirit.

Thank You Jesus.

Article Date: 3/8/11

 

Leonard Deane, Calvary's Employment Support Group Coordinator

Leonard A. Deane Jr. is a Calvary church member and the Coordinator for our Employment Support Group.

Additional Articles by Leonard A. Deane Jr.

 

Matthew 22:34-40 "Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'"

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