Sunday Morning Podcast March 13, 2022. Bro. Dave Goble. Pastor.
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Our text this morning is found in Nehemiah 8:6. Ezra was the high priest in the time of Nehemiah, and is here speaking and blessing the Lord as the great God. Nehemiah had returned from exile in Babylon, to Jerusalem where he had led the rebuilding of the walls of the city. While there he had found the ruins of the temple, where they found the book of the law, that had been given to them. When they found it, it reawakened them to the God they served, and what His commandments were.
TEXT: NEHEMIAH 8:6 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 worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground.
“Their faces to the ground” illustrated the people’s attitude of humility in worship, and how they had been living, ..once the book of the law had been discovered. They were reminded of what it meant to serve God. The idea of worship caused them to prostrate themselves with faces toward the ground, in an attitude of complete submission to God. When you humble yourself in this manner, you demonstrate there is nothing left to give of yourself. That you have removed all of your strength, and nothing remains in that position. That while you are bowed, there is nothing that can get in the way. Your strength not being the issue here, but whether you are willing to submit yourself in an attitude of complete submission. Showing that the other has complete power an authority over you! Do you feel that way this morning with God? Does God have complete authority and power over us? We will talk about how we see God. Some have said “I see God as a big fluffy teddy bear in the sky, for when I feel sad and alone.” But as I told someone one time, I see God as Sovereign, a Monarch, and in a certain sense, “All in All!” Another one said, “for one to know this teddy bear God, one needs to know the Sovereign God!” But in this scripture illustration , the people knew God as a Sovereign God! As an Authority, to worship with an attitude of submission! They also saw God in a loving way, demonstrated by two words; Amen, Amen! This morning we’re going to be talking about “Amen.” Through this study I learned something about, “Amen.” We sang a song this morning “without testing, there is no belief.” Do you believe that? Is there such a thing about belief without testing? Two different kinds of belief, aren’t there? This one is, no belief without testing. And the other is there is belief with testing. We will talk about the two. The reason for this sermon this morning is, we are moving into a post pandemic world, and life. Yet I don’t believe we are going to spend the rest of our lives like the last two years. That will demand us to question how are we going to come through this, or out of it. If we have slipped in our worship in God in this time period, ..then where is our first love?
What happened to our first love? So that is our purpose of this message. Perhaps along the way, we’re going to ask, ..is our first love still as secure 2 years ago or before? For some of us, our love might not have been so secure anyway. From all the test and trials might have found us realizing ourselves in an insecure condition. This is also important to know! We cannot play church, can we? We live in a time, as a song says, “time is declining.” Declining for all of us! We can’t play, or presume with God! This is a time to take stock and be serious about our spirit. I have titled the message this morning, “To Believe, or Not Believe: That is the Question ! ” This verse in Nehemiah, directly addresses this question! We each need to ask ourselves this question. “What do I believe? How do I believe? What do I really believe in?” Is my belief tested or not tested? So I started with the word verb, “to be.” The English verb, I read, is the most irregular verb in the English language! It has 8 different ways to make the verb! [ One of the reasons for this, is because this is one of the most important words, (“to be”), in the English language; it means a lot!] Because the verb “to be,” ‘being‘, means ..”I am.” Or it means “you are.” The English language must be the hardest one for those learning it, because the English language breaks the “rules” all the time! It can even be hard for native speakers sometimes. “He is,” They were,” “We shall be,” ..How do you get all that in there? “I am,” ..”I was.” Some might in disjointed grammar say “You was.” Don’t laugh it can make a lot of sense! There is no more important verb than “I am“, for it describes, “I exist, I’m somebody, I’m important!” “I’m not a ‘nobody!” And God says, ..”I AM!”
When Moses asked God ‘who’ to say sent him to the people, God said to tell them “I AM” sent you! This is in the Hebrew language, which there is no past tense. There is no way to say “I Was,” in Hebrew. It can only be “I AM.” It’s one of those things where the verb is only the present or the future! God says in every moment, “I AM!” God says, in every moment, I AM present! So therefore because I always will be, I’m always in the future!” Only we have changed it to be a past verb of “I Am.” One of the reasons this verb is so difficult to figure out, is because it is so difficult to figure out this concept of “being.” English language has borrowed from so many other languages to create this verb, which is one of the reason there is so many ways to translate it! We’ve borrowed from German, Scandinavian languages, the Latin, sometimes the Greek, etc.! And all these languages, and etc. makes the verb so hard to figure out! So “to be” or “believe” is actually coming from many different languages! By the time you get to “believe“, believe is made up of 2 words! The first is “be.” Because “to be” is so hard to figure out, we took a little from many other languages. To try and help us understand! That’s why we have so many translations of the verb, ..to be. The second one is “lieve.” Lieve, doesn’t mean I’m going some place, “lieve” comes from the German word “lieba.” In modern German, it means “I love.” So to “believe” literally means ” to be in love.” Which means I’m taking possession of my love in God, or ..I believe in. “I believe in God!” This is important Saints, because when we use words, we need to really know what were saying, or mean! So often when growing up, we use words, without really knowing what we’re saying. This morning we’re really breaking it down, so I’m asking, what do you really mean when you say “I believe.” For literally, ..”believe” means ‘to possess love,’ or ‘exist in love.’ That’s what believe means!
To Believe or not Believe. That is the Question
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