Together

to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
10Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”’

The ultimate result of the people hearing God and meeting with Him was joy, after the tears and the sorrow came the joy that can only come from God, that joy that says ‘God has forgiven you’, Nehemiah told the people not to weep or to grieve because this was a new start for them, they were coming to God and having the slate wiped clean, they had come to God as one people for the first time in many, many years and so for the first time in many, many years they were hearing the affirmation of God’s strength, forgiveness and care. The immediate result of this was…

The people acted

‘Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.’
They celebrated, they partied, they enjoyed themselves, and they had food, sent food to those who had none. They had a good time. The next day, the heads of the families met with the priests and leaders to study the word of God and it was then that they re-discovered the feast of Booths. Ezra was their priest and scribe but he didn’t know about it, Nehemiah was their governor but he didn’t know about it. The knowledge was only found when the family heads met to study and from this the celebration of God was re-instated. This was to be a seven-day celebration of God (Leviticus 23: 37 cf), and it was a celebration of God. Parties have a tendency to get out of hand; this one didn’t because each day started with Scripture before the people feasted. The Book of the Law of Moses stated that this was to be a celebration of God and to make sure of that God was given first place, he was the centre, the meaning of the event and after all this was done the people again met together on the eighth day.

Conclusion

The Old Testament is often seen as dry and dusty. It is often described as showing a blood thirsty God and that it has no relevance to us as we live in the New Testament age. Yet just looking at this one chapter from Nehemiah we can see that this thinking is wrong, that we have so much to learn from the Old Testament. The people met together as one person, how often do we hear of congregations that are divided by personal prejudice, long standing rows, stubbornness, pride? If we are split how can we meet as one person? We need to meet here with a common purpose and aim and that purpose has to be to meet God and to worship Him. The Israelites heard God, do we? Do we come here each week to seek God and to listen to His voice, together, or are we here to get what we can out of the meetings? If we get nothing is that down to the leaders or to the attitude that we come here with? If we come with hearts that are open and have the courage to keep them open, then we will meet with God we see people come to God in repentance, we will hear weeping, see tears on the mercy seat. Not only tears of sorrow but also of joy as people find forgiveness, as they find their slate wiped clean. If we come as one person into this hall and we see people find God for the first