The Prayers of Nehemiah

Nehemiah’s 7th Prayer – Nehemiah 9:5-38

Insights

1. This prayer is the longest recorded prayer in scripture. It is a corporate prayer of repentance. Upon completion of the wall the people gather together for worship and hear the reading of the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible). 
2. The Word of God was taught by Ezra and other leaders for an entire day. Afterwards they came back for more. Conviction resulted in the hearts of the hearers and they realized that God had been faithful to them, but they had not been faithful to God. 
3. There are 4 key observations about this prayer.
   1. Notice the ways they address God and give Him praise.
   1. They acknowledge God’s faithfulness even when they were unfaithful.
   1. Notice the ways they acknowledge their sin and evil in the sight of God.
   1. Notice the ways people demonstrate repentance with commitment to obedience.
4. This long prayer is an expression of their desire to return and repent to their God.

Observations

1. A crisis forces realignment and repentance. Erosion is very slow and almost unnoticed until a crisis hits and reveals the drift.
2. The grammatical-historical interpretation of scripture is still the preferred method of interpretation. This allows biblical applications to be applied to people’s everyday problems, giving hope for a better day. Notice how this truth brought a nation to repentance before God.
3. Once you discover that you have lost your value system and moral compass, that is the time to call it for what it is – SIN. Don’t stop at this point, recommit to the tried and true values that you previously built your life upon.

Return to thankfulness! Self-reliance is blinding and causes you to stay in an echo chamber. We all need to hear the hard truth to bring us back to a proper focus of what we are doing and for whom we are worshipping. 

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