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Ago, we were in Nehemiah chapter 6. In Nehemiah chapter 6, we saw that the wall was almost done., only the doors needed to be hung yet. And at that time, the attacks of the enemies turned to more of a mental battle. They changed their tactics. And with rumors and accusations and threats, they tried to distract and discourage Nehemiah. First, they tried to call him down from the wall to come on out to a I don't know, a meeting that they could distract him and get him away from those things. And he just ignored them. Four times they sent messengers saying come out here and speak with us.
And he just said, I'm busy. You know, should I leave the Lord's work to go and to talk with you guys? So he refused. Then the fifth time that they sent to ask him to come, they sent it with a threat saying if you don't come then we're going to send a message to the king and tell him that you are building this wall in order to plan a coup against the kingdom. You know that he's committing sedition. Well, Nehemiah knew the king. He was his cup bearer. He had a good relationship with the king and he knew that there was no truth in that.
He said that there's you guys there's no truth in that and so I'm still not coming down and he didn't come down. Then it says that he went and he was speaking with one of his informants and he was told that there was an assassination plot in the works against his life and that he should go and hide in the temple. But he responded and he said no he's not allowed to go into the temple. Only the priests are allowed to go into the temple. And Nehemiah was not a priest. And so it would have been a sin for him to go into the temple.
And he said, "I would rather die. It's not worth my life to disobey the Lord. It is better to obey God than man, even to the loss of his own life." And so he did not go. Later, he learned that it wasn't even a true assassination plot, but that his informant had been paid by the enemies to tell him that. Then we're told that the wall was finished. Only 52 days in building the wall. And when the enemies heard that it was finished, it says that they realized that God was in it. And that as they had been trying to fight against Nehemiah, they were fighting against God.
And I love that that they realized that God was in the project and if they were trying to deter the project, they themselves were fighting not against Nehemiah, not against man, but against God. And that's something that can comfort us. If we're truly doing what the Lord has called us to do and people come against us, they're not fighting against us. They're fighting against God. When people come against what the word of God says when we're standing for the truth of the word of God, when we're standing for, I don't know, the life of children in the womb, when we're standing for the sanctity of marriage, when we're standing for I don't list off a number of different things and they come against us.
They're not coming against us. They're coming against God, right? And they will find that they are fighting against God. Amen. All right, we will be in Nehemiah chapter 7 tonight. Let's pray. Then it was sorry I started reading instead of praying. Father, we praise you and we thank you tonight, Lord. We pray that you would lead us through your word. That your Holy Spirit would give me your perfect words to speak. That you would inspire others in this room to lead us in discussion, Lord, as we as we speak one with another about your word. I pray that your Holy Spirit would use us as your living stones to minister one to another here tonight.
We praise you, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen. Then it was when the wall was built and I had hung the doors, when the gatekeepers, the singers, the Levites had been appointed, that I gave the charge of Jerusalem to my brother Hanani and Hananiah, the leader of the citadel. For he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. Nehemiah's his project was to build the wall. That's what he was called to do. That's what he traveled over 800 miles to do. He was dedicated. He completed the project in 52 days. And now he is done, right? He's done with this project.
And so he no longer needs to be governor over Jerusalem as he has been functioning. And so he hands that off to Haniah here. I love the qualifications listed here for Haniah, right? He's it doesn't talk about his education. It doesn't talk about his position. It doesn't talk about his lineage. It talks about that he is a faithful man who feared God more than men. And that's one of the greatest qualifications you could ever have. Unfortunately, the world and the church today look for lots of other qualifications. You know, they look for things that you know, man looks to like titles and education and references and resumes and those sort of things.
And none of those things are necessarily wrong. And in fact, they can be used in a great way to to prepare people. But ultimately, those qualifications are not what's most important to God. What's most important to God is are you faithful to his calling? God can do more with somebody who's faithful than somebody who has all the qualifications in the world but is not faithful. Right? When you go through the New Testament and you look at times that like Paul is talking about other people and commending other people for what they've done, he often will list off you know so and so like Titakus, right, is a faithful man, right?
And that's the qualification that he used. And it's I was looking through that today and I should have written down some of the references, but there are four or five different men that are listed in the New Testament and they're not listed by any other qualifications other than that they were a faithful man. You know, the quality of being faithful is important. And I think that there are many times that we falter in being faithful. You know that to be faithful is one that we can place our faith in, right? Somebody who's dependable, somebody who is somebody that we can place our faith in.
And here this guy was faithful. More important than somebody that man can place their faith upon is somebody that God can place his faith upon. Right? That God knows that if he calls you to do something, you're going to do it. In fact, in one of the parables that where Jesus is talking, he says he asks the Pharisees, he says, "There's two two kids, two brothers and they're their parent asks them to go do something, and one of them says, "I'll go do it." But then doesn't. And then the other one says, "No, I'm not going to do that." But in the end does it.
And he asked the Pharisees, "Which one did the will of the father." Well, the one that did it, obviously, even though he said he wouldn't, right? He was the one who performed the work. He was the one that actually went out and did it. You know, we can say that we're faithful. We can say that we'll do something. We can we can give lip service to God, but God sees the action, right? He sees the doing. In James, it says you know, be not hearers only of the word, but be ye doers of the word, right? To be one that goes out and does what God has led us to do is a faithful man.
Sometimes that being faithful is also being long-suffering, right? Because faithfulness sometimes requires being faithful, month after month, year after year being faithful to what God has called you to do when many others would have dropped out, right? And so here he's a faithful man who feared God more than many, right? When we to when we fear God more than others, then we will be faithful to him. I'm spending way too much time on verse two. Let's move on. Can I ask a question? Yeah. A couple weeks ago, I came across this in Hebrews or 11. He was talking about Enoch, but verse 6 and Hebrews 11.
But without faith, it is impossible to please him. Referring to God. So, if we want to please God, we've got to have faith. I never really noticed that before. So I was thinking about all my doubts and everything like how can I please if I'm doubting Yeah. So that's good. Yeah. I like that. Without faith it is impossible to please God. If you don't have faith that you're doing it for the Lord, then why are you doing it? And if you're doing it for some other reason other than your faith in God, then you're not doing it for God. You know, and that would be the depart from me for I never knew you, right?
Even though they had done incredible works, they did a lot of doing, but it wasn't what God had called them to do. So then it wasn't done in faith. Verse three. Sure. Jesus our heavenly father glory honor that count. I think it depends upon the heart. I think that's the point of that when Jesus is talking about that when he says that there are many who will cast out demons in my name and yet you know when they come to me and they say Lord he'll say depart from me for I never knew you so they were doing things in the name of the Lord they were even casting out demons in the name of the Lord but the doing wasn't as important as their heart and so the faithfulness of their heart that led to the action is what's important.
The action without the faith is worthless. The faith without the action is worthless according to James. The two have to go together. Right? Faith without works is dead. But works without faith is will not please the Lord. Yes. Right. Right. But you also can't just have a heart to do something and never do it and expect to get a reward either, right?
Serve the Lord and expect anybody to notice. Don't serve the Lord for anybody to compliment. Don't serve the Lord for any other reason to enter the sure. Verse three. And I said to them, "Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot. And while they stand guard, they shut them and bar the doors and appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. One at this watch station and another in front of his own house." So the wall is completed. They now have a protection around them. They have doors that are hung that can be locked. And he's appointing these gatekeepers, these singers, these Levites.
So these are different from the gatekeepers of the temple, right? There's also gatekeepers of the temple. And we read they even wrote a psalm about how they'd rather be a gatekeeper than in the house in the house of the Lord than some notable position. Those are different. These gatekeepers here are of the wall. And that's pertinent to Nehemiah because Nehemiah just finished the wall. And so there were those those gates. We went through all the gates when I had that map up here a few weeks ago. So these gatekeepers are of those gates. And so he's giving them instructions.
So I love this here that they have gatekeepers, they have singers, and they have Levites that are going to be at all these gates. And the instructions are that they are to lock them and bar them and watch them. They are not to open the gates until later in the day until the sun is hot. Right? So there's only a small window during the day when these gates are opened. They're they don't open them early in the morning. They wait until the sun is hot, until it's plenty of light out. Then they open the gates so that the watchmen can see who's entering the city, can scrutinize anybody that's entering in.
And then as the day waines they lock the gates and so there's only a small window that people can get in. And that speaks to me of that they're still in under attack. They're still being watchful for their enemies to come against them. You know that the while the wall may have been done while Nehemiah's project was done they were not alleviated from the responsibility to keep watch. There's sometimes kind of in an application to our lives today is there's sometimes that we may get through some sort of project or get over some sort of I don't know, some sort of level of maturity or so we think within our walk with the Lord and we feel like then we can let our guards down or we can we don't need to serve in that manner anymore or or so and that.
But that's not true, right? We need to keep watch. The enemy is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and he's constantly analyzing us. You know, I've talked many times before about when in Job when Satan appeared before God, God asked Satan, he said, "Have you considered my servant Job?" And the word for consider there is a military term. It's he's asking Job, have you done reconnaissance on Job? Or he's asking Satan, have you done reconnaissance on Job? And looking for his vulnerabilities, looking for ways that he could attack him. And Satan's response is yes, I have. You know, I've scouted him out.
I've done my reconnaissance on him. And I've found very few vulnerabilities because you bless him. And so then that's where that whole dialogue starts where God says, "Okay, well, I'll remove some of those protections upon him and you can take away his blessings and then we'll see if he still praises me." Right? And then that's the whole book of Job, right? Where at first Satan is allowed to take away all of his material blessings, all of his children, his wealth, his servants, his fields, his flocks, his houses, everything. And he still praises the Lord. And then next, Satan is allowed to take away his health and he still praises the Lord.
Right? But there it shows us that Satan is doing reconnaissance on people looking for vulnerabilities. And so there's there isn't a point in our walk where we get to a level where we can, I don't know, slack off we get to some level of sanctification where we get to retire from from watching out for the attacks of the enemy. Yes. Is that why we're supposed to be like You see somebody say that absolutely at one chips.
What are you saying about Doritos right now? Huh? What are you saying about Doritos? They're not chips. They're bad. Anyway, so somebody admonished you But I later realized they were my friends and they want me to stop acting stupid. So I like that many years later. Yeah. I mean this as he's setting up these things as he's setting up people to to watch the gates to be on the a wall to watch from above the watchmen. He's setting up people to be there as singers and Levites and all this. It's a group effort, right? It's not just one person that he's setting there.
You know, there's many gates and there's many watchmen. And so, we're they're all working together. And I think that in the articles of the armor of God, when it says, "Take up the shield of faith which is above you all," it talks about all of us together. You know, that above you all is that the shield functions best when it's used in fellowship. Right. And I believe that Paul modeled the armor of God on the Romans and the Romans in battle would use their shields not individually but collectively. And so their shields would sort of lock together and they could create a little fortress over them with their shields.
And that's the model that Paul was using. And so our shields are not individual protections. They are protections over our fellowship. And so we should be joining together and watching for one another and praying for one another and encouraging one another, admonishing where needed. So yes, absolutely. But not letting our guard down and just because the project of the wall was done didn't mean that there weren't lots of other projects to be done. You know, there some people that have had a season in ministry and they feel like their time is done. You know, you ask them if they want to get plugged in to serve somehow and they're like, "Oh, I've done children's ministry, you know.
Oh, I've done that. I no, I'm I'm I don't need to do those things anymore." Well, sure you do, right? You don't ever retire from serving the Lord. You may change, right? Your role may change. Like here, they're they finished the wall and so now they're on to being watchmen and singers and Levites and gatekeepers and stuff, you know? And so our role may change, but we are never done serving the Lord. Sure. I love everything that you said there. And I was just kind of thinking in light of like like trials too. Like this whole wall thing was like kind of a big thing.
It had a lot of you know spiritual warfare as you were saying. And I think the I don't know after going through one of the trials in my life, I felt like I was thinking about how I wanted to be close to the Lord and all that, but I think what I got wrong for a little while was that I had to be I was praying for different aspects of my life. I was praying for my marriage, for my kids, for all these different things. And I was like to the point where I was getting anxious about it. And what I love about the armor of God is that the shield is the shield of faith.
And eventually the Lord gave me peace in those things. And I didn't stop praying. Lord forbid I ever stopped praying for my family and you know our church body, but thankfully there's there's peace in that faith. It's not just not again, not that we shouldn't be doing things, but that we can have faith that whatever comes the Lord's going to handle it. I don't have to be ready for every individual thing that might come my way. Amen. Yeah. And God calls us to have faith in big things, right? Things where he gets the most glory is when we have faith in things that are bigger than we can handle, right?
I mean, we're looking at Nehemiah who was a cup bearer who took on an a masonry project, right, 800 miles away with materials that he couldn't afford. And so it was a big project and he had to have the faith to do that. And when we're when we put ourselves out into a place where it requires faith, then that's where God wants to show up so that he is glorified. Well, that was my problem. I kept throughout the whole trial trying to fix things myself to be more wise, be more knowledgeable, and it wasn't until I let go and I said, "Lord, you are over this."
That's when he stepped in. Amen. He's not going to interrupt you in all your going on and about and all that. Yeah. No way for you to give it. Well, and if we're kind of the thing I was getting to there was that if we're only putting ourselves out into ways that we can in our own strength fulfill them so even within your marriage or these other things that you were praying about, if you're only you know going so far as ways that you think that you can fulfill them and then you're becoming anxious because you're struggling to fulfill them then maybe your vision is too small as well, right?
And I think those are ways that like grows us in our faith is by allowing us to go through the things kind of like an exercise and your muscles get stronger and you know so I was thank you convicted because I've been spending not all my time but at first particularly just feeling sorry for myself because all of a sudden I have all this pain and I didn't understand I never really So, first of all, I you know, I was like, well, I've then I realized, wait a minute, yeah, I'm 79 and I've never really had pain. I need you to praise the Lord that I was 79 years before I that was one of the early realizations that I had, but you know, recently I did a bunch of computer work for the funeral programs and bookmarks and whatever anybody asked me to do.
And then I then I developed this whole thing with carpal tunnels that I've had for years, but it never caused pain or anything. Now it's painful. And so my first thought was, "Oh, I probably better not do any more computer work because it made it hurt." And then tonight, I'm thinking, "No, I God God took me through it. It all got done. There were no problems with it. I need to just do it and I need to trust him." And I think that's where sometimes sacrifice and surrender come in which are all part of our our walk with the Lord wanting to do those things.
Amen. Now, the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and the houses were not rebuilt. Now before one of the prophets was talking about how they were neglecting to build other things. They were neglecting to build the temple and neglecting to build the wall and yet they were only building their own houses. And so now when Nehemiah's come, we've seen that turn a bit. They properly prioritized the wall, but now they have that opportunity to start working on their houses more and building their houses., and notice also before that when he was assigning the watchmen, he's assigning some of those watchmen to watch in front of their own homes and so they have a vested interest in watching that section of the city because their own homes and their own families are affected by that as well.
Then my God put it into my heart to gather the nobles, the rulers, the people that they might be registered by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of those who had come up in the first return and found written in it. These are the people, the province who came back from the captivity of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his city. And so this is going back it's going back about a hundred years, right? Because that first wave of return under Zerubbabel was about a hundred years before Nehemiah here is working on the wall.
So it's been about 150 years or so or more since they were taken captive. And that first wave which we read about in Ezra after 70 years of captivity they were able to come back. They were in the land for about 60 years and then and then Ezra came back and then right or no it's about a 60-year gap from the end of when we were talking about Zerubbabel to then the time that Ezra came back. So there's like a 60-year gap there in Ezra between chapter five and six I think or seven and six and seven.
Five and six maybe. Praise the Lord., and so then now, like I said, so, so this list of people that he's reading is about a hundred years old. It would be what was what came back in that first wave with Zerubbabel at the beginning of Ezra., now I'm not going to read through all of these names verbatim., it's very it's the same list that we had back in Ezra., which I don't think I read through verbatim there either. Praise the Lord. So, on your own time, you ought to read through some of these things., sometimes it's fun to look at the meanings of these names.
Here recently for one of my school projects. I was reading through this genealogy or in the genealogy in Ezra and I was I wrote in a paper about how many of their names have the name of God within their name. And so that's really cool. And so as you just kind of glance through this list, you can pull out that many of these names have God's name right within them. Whether it be the yah where it ends with you know the yah or it begins with the yah like Yeshua would be God is salvation. And so you see that there in verse 39 or or it'll end with the like jedadia I think means the provision of the Lord or I can't remember jedia.
And so the yah there is at the end. So, a lot of these names have God's name right within them. Or it'll have the Adonai. And so, you'll have like I can't pull one out there. I just saw one and now I lost it. Anyway, so God's name is mixed within a lot of these. And so, you have the Adonai, the Yhovah, and L or Elohim. And so some of them will end with L like Giddell there in verse 49. And so that's that Gell is his name ends with God. And so anyway, so kind of cool. And so th that's something on your own time, pull out a Bible thesaurus and go through some of these names.
Or just go to blue letter Bible and click on the verse and then all those things will be laid out there for you. Amen. So I'm going to jump down to 61 where there's a bit of a break in this genealogy and it says there and these were the ones who came I guess I should read 62 all of the ne or 60 as well all the nethanm and the sons of Solomon's servants were 392 and these were the ones who came up from Tel Mela tell Harsha cheruben and Ir But they could not identify their father's house nor their lineage whether they were of Israel.
And so these here came and they thought that they are related to the Jews, right? They responded to the call to return to the promised land. But they didn't have genealogical records or so to prove that they were a part of the Jews. And so they're they're rejected here from being able to serve in that way. Back in Ezra or actually down here in verse 65 as well, it says that they can consult. So I'll keep reading down. These were the sons of Dellayia, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nakota, 642. and of the and of the priests, the sons of Habia, the sons of Coo, the sons of Beerzi, who took a wife of the daughters of Beerzai or Ber.
Yeah. The Gileadite and was called by their name. These sought their listings among those who were registered by genealogies, but it was not found. Therefore, they were excluded from the priesthood as defiled. And the governor said to them that they should not eat of the most holy things till a priest could consult the Urim and the Thummim. And so we talked there about the Urim and the Thummim that were it was a way that they could communicate with God and divine whether these people were actually a part of these families or not. But it seems like they can't do that right now and so they're waiting until such and such time that they can consult the Urim and the Thummim.
And they're going to be set aside until that time. One of the things that I was kind of thinking about here is in heaven it says that there are books of the accounts of everything and books of the names of everything and how we then when we when we die or when we get to heaven those books will be opened and we will have to give an account for everything. But if our name is written in the lamb's book of life then we are forgiven for everything that's written in those accounts. And so as we go through these genealogies and stuff sometimes they're just lists of names that don't mean much to us today.
They meant a lot to the those people, right? But we think about how perfect of a recordkeeper God is and how in heaven there are records that are kept of everything, right? Say something like even our silly thoughts or Yes. Our idol words. Yes. And her idol thoughts where we will have to give an account for our idol thoughts or not idol words. Again if our name is written in the lamb's book of life then we are forgiven. But Jesus tells an interesting parable at one point about the wedding feast and how there will be people there in the wedding feast who somehow got in not through the gate, right?
They got in like climbing over the wall or got in some other way. You know, they snuck into the wedding feast, but that they're found out, right? That they're found that they're not clothed correctly., ultimately that their name is not written in the book of life. And so, when I was thinking about these here, they've come and they think that they're going to serve the Lord, but it's found that they don't have the right lineage, right? And so thinking about our lives if we are an heir to the son of God, if and to the throne of grace, then we are welcome to the wedding feast, right?
But there are others who may think that they're serving the Lord, who may be doing religious things, who may be casting out demons in his name, but they are not heirs of the throne of grace. They have not been they have not accepted Jesus Christ and so therefore are not sons of the king and you know while they might be able to mix for a while they're going to get found out. I think that that's I don't think that that's like a practical thing that some people are going to get into heaven and then at some point Peter's going to come up to him say you know you're not supposed to be here.
I think it's more showing us that we can only be there by the blood of Jesus Christ and if people think that they're going to get in by some other means they will not and say right perhaps right and so here God knows God knows if these people are correctly related and are able to serve in the temple or not right but they don't necessarily You know, and so then God has to be consulted and there at that great white throne judgment the book of the lamb or yeah, the book of life will be consulted. Somebody that I talk a good game, but they add the a lady.
She goes and you know Jesus She was talking about all this crazy stuff and I'm like, "No, that's not Christianity. It's you can't wiggle your way in this other nutty stuff and still call yourself a Christian." Yeah. Universalism is something that is becoming more and more prevalent. And so people talk about being going to heaven simply if they have faith you know and so people talk about their faith journey and faith in anything. But no Jesus is clear that it is faith in him alone right that there is no other name under heaven by which a man can be saved.
Verse 66. Although the whole assembly was 42,360 besides their male and female servants of whom there were 7,3737 and they had 245 men and women singers. And so again, we're going back and we're reading the records from the return with Zorabel. And so it was a fairly large group that came compared to Ezra's, right? Of the people who were in captivity in Babylon, it was probably only about 2% or less that returned. And so this 46,000, right? Or how many was it? I lost it. Whatever. It it's only about 2% or less of the pe of the Jews who were living in Babylon at that time.
And then later when Ezra came, it was even less than that. It was only a few thousand that returned with Ezra. Where was I? Was I in 68? Their horses were 736. Their mules were 245. their camels were 435. Their donkeys 6,720. And some of the heads of the father's houses gave to the work. And the governor gave to the treasury 1,000 gold drachmas, 50 basins, and 530 priestly garments. Some of the heads of the father's houses gave to the treasury of the work 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,200 silver miners. And that was the rest of the people that gave or Yeah.
And that which the rest of the people gave was 20,000 gold dramas, 2,000 silver miners, and 67 priestly garments. Now the priests and the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, and some of the Nethanim, and all of Israel dwelt in their cities. When the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities.
Chapter 8. Now all the people gathered as one man in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law which the Lord had commanded Israel. I love this and I love this chapter here quite a bit. They've completed the wall. They still have watchmen. They're bolting the doors at night. They have watchmen on the wall. They have those protocols set up. But now they've gotten to a point where now they want to study the word, right? And so they ask Ezra come teach us the Bible.
Teach us the word of God here. Here here's the book of the law, read it to us. Teach us. And so I love their priority here and their desire as they're they're growing now, as they're feeling comfortable in the Lord, they want to learn more about him. As we go through this chapter, there are many things in this chapter that are adopted sort of by the church. And so the church kind of has fashioned some of the way that it functions today based upon Nehemiah chapter 8. And we'll talk about some of those things as we go through. And then he read from it in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate from morning until midday before the men and women and those who could understand and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
So here one of the things that we glean out of this that we sort of apply to our fellowship today is that those that are in the sort of this main teaching here are those of understanding. Which would mean that children and those younger than are able to understand or consume the word are not necessarily required to be at this gathering. And so there are churches that will kind of use this verse here to talk about or to justify having children's ministry and child care so that the adults or those with understanding can listen to the message one this is a long message, right?
This is from morning until midday. And so that's probably three or four hours that this teaching is going on and holding a child's attention span for 3 to four hours is a fairly impossible task., and so the function or the design here is that it's for the men and the women and those who could understand and so I feel that that's adult men, adult women, and then kids that are old enough to understand the message. And so here at Calvary I say this because there are some churches who just think that children's ministry in and of itself is wrong and that children should always be in the service and that they're going to learn best there with their parents in the service.
And there are some people that have that conviction and the way that we've designed things here is that they're welcome to sit in the sanctuary with their kids. I think it even says that in the bulletin, right? That you know you're welcome to sit in the sanctuary with your family. There's also the cry room if you know if the children are a distraction for others you know please use the cry room. But that we also have children's ministry downstairs where we have where those younger kids who don't really understand a message can play in the toddler room., I think often we hope that those toddler teachers are also trying to introduce them to the word, but knowing that their attention span is such that they're not going to grasp a lot of that.
And then they age up into another class that is designed to their understanding and that has fun and crafts and games to mix in with the word, but they are getting the word. And all of our children's ministry classes downstairs teach the word verse by verse. And then they go to into another class that is geared towards an older group of more understanding and then hopefully at some point coming into the sanctuary when they have the understanding to sit in for a full message. And so again, some of those things we look at Nehemiah chapter 8 here as part of the why we design those things that way.
Maybe we should get back to a three or four hour sermon though. I don't know. What do you guys think? I will if you will. Praise the Lord. There we go. I think you could do it. You be right. Amen. Yeah, I might need a couple more glasses of water. That's all right. Amen., many years ago, we the men of the church all gathered out at Riverside Bible Camp and we read through the Calvary Chapel Distinctives together and, and I started out reading chapter 1 and then we got to chapter two and I asked if anybody else wanted to read. Nobody else wanted to read and so I ended up reading the entire book.
Nobody else and that was all day. That was like from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm or something like that. We broke for lunch at one point. And so it was all right. Praise the Lord. It was fine. And say what maybe maybe.
Amen. But it was good. And so over over a three-day weekend, we read the entire book or I read the entire book and everybody listened., praise the Lord. It was good. So I can speak for four hours straight with a five minute break somewhere in there. I had a water bottles. Yes, just one. Whatever. Praise the Lord., let's move on. Verse four. So Ezra the scribe stood on a platform of wood which they had made for that purpose. And besides him on his right hand stood I'm going to read these names in a moment. But here's the next thing that is kind of designed after this chapter is a platform.
And so in most churches today we have a stage. So it's an elevated platform so that the speaker is up a couple of feet so that everybody can see that person better and it also helps to project the voice better. With PA systems today, we don't necessarily need that aspect of it. But in their time when they didn't have a PA, elevating the speaker was very important. And so it helps visually and it helps auditorially., and so here, building a platform of wood to elevate the speaker is something that we see here in, Nehemiah chapter 8 that churches do today.
And again, that's something else that some people have a problem with., there are some churches that are designed without a stage or without a platform because they feel like the pastor should not be elevated above the people., but we have biblical examples here of that. That's how they did it back then. I always wondered as a kid how Moses talked to so many people and I guess it makes sense why God had him fountains so often. Yeah. The I don't know the engineering of auditoriums used to be a skill, right? It was a very important skill that is taken for granted now because we rely on PA systems.
I mean there's still a lot that goes into the the audio design of large auditoriums, but today it's sort of for the opposite purpose. Right? Back then auditoriums were designed to project sound., now auditoriums are designed to suppress sound because we're using the PAS and we don't want the echoes around the room. We want to control that and so we want to design the room to absorb the sound. Whereas older auditoriums were designed to echo the sound so that that voice could get out further. Like the auditorium here or the sanctuary here was probably designed to help project sound around it and that's why we have problems in there sometimes and why we had to build all those sound isolation panels to try to help us suppress the sound.
When you go into big auditoriums today, you'll see like up in the ceiling, you'll see different ceiling panels that are all angled back and they have insulation on top of them and then they'll have insulation panels. That's all designed to try to suppress sound. Whereas you look at like the Roman what did they call those things? Those half moonshaped amphitheaters. Yes. They're all designed to echo sound and so they help the speaker to project into that whole area. Yeah. And follow and we saw some of those in theaters and people would be in a particular spot like testing dropping a coin or doing something and then a family member would be up and far corners noting how well the sound traveled and one photo I took I did like a panoramic and I didn't realize it because I didn't look back at the until we were home.
But it was the half circle amphitheater, but it was so exact that the panoramic looked like a straight line. Ah, neat. So, as you turn, it was all designed perfect. Yeah. Wow. That's really cool. Yeah. And it was we take those things for granted today. And it's amazing how well they designed those things and how much engineering went into the just the shape of the seating in order to project sound. Huh? Where the hemisphere? Yes. I think that one's not necessarily designed the same way, but it doesn't have seats. Yeah. I don't know. The one in the one in Aman, Jordan that we went to was incredible just how it went way up, hundreds of feet up.
And you know, it's so steep like the run and the rise on that would definitely not be approved by code today, but it's like you step up 18 inches to go back like 10 inches and then up and it went up hundreds of feet. So that you get to the top and you know you feel like if you're afraid of heights you definitely feel it standing at the top of those amphitheaters and they're just massive. Something else that astounded me about that one totally not having to do with anything that we're talking about, but just talking about ancient engineering is it had it had a drainage system throughout the whole thing.
So that if it rains that water was all channeled to drains that took it down. And so they thought about all of that as well so that the seating wouldn't flood and that it would control all of that water coming down. And so all of the marble panels the marble slabs where your feet would go they were hollow underneath. And so there was a there was a channel underneath all of them that ran to different shoots that went down. And so all that water was channeling down and going down to a cyro that was down at the bottom.
And just neat that ancient engineering how they were thinking of all those things. Amen. Oh so these names here besides him at his right hand stood Matahaya, Shemi Shima, Anna, Uriah, Hilkayiah and Messiah. And at his left hand stood Pediah, Mishael, Malca, Hashim or Hasham, Hashbadana, Zechariah, and Mashalam. Now, we don't do this at our church, but there are other churches that you'll see that the elders will sit on the stage kind of behind the pastor or at like big evangelistic outreaches or so. They'll have seating up there on stage and the elders or other pastors and stuff will sit up on stage.
So again, that comes from Nehemiah here. And so it speaks of those elders are there in approval of everything that's being said. And so they're you know that he doesn't stand alone that they're up there approving of what he's saying and praying for him. And kind of just giving him authority. And yeah, it's again something we don't do here at Calvary SonRise, but that you do see in other churches that are from Nehemiah chapter 8. And we're getting close on to the end, so we should probably pick up later. So we'll pick up next time in 85, which is it's a good point anyway because that's when he actually opens the book and he starts reading the word.
And yes. Amen. I think he read it verse by verse. And so that's another thing. Amen. Praise the Lord., one thing I want to do is I want to since my family wasn't here on Sunday and we generally pray for anybody going on a missions trip the week before, I'd like to do that tonight., so could somebody run go grab Havala? Oh, she's here. Good. All right. Amen., so I'll pray for the to close this and then I'd like you guys to pray for us. Father, we praise you tonight. We thank you for these Scriptures here out of Nehemiah.
I pray that you would help us to apply them to our lives. Lord, I pray that we would never let our guard down, but that we would be watchmen watching what is going on, what the enemy is doing, and knowing that you are greater and that we can trust in you., and I pray that we would never slack off, but that we would continue to plan and to have vision and to have faith faith to do things beyond our natural ability that you might be glorified in those things, Lord. Lord, I thank you for this chapter here, which shows them their hunger, how they've come together and they've done this labor project, but that they want to do a project now where they're learning the word of God and they have a hunger and a thirst for it.
And I just pray that you would develop a hunger and a thirst in us for your word and that we would faithfully come together to hear your word. I praise you, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.