When God Becomes Real
By Rev. James D. Pardue
Scripture: Nehemiah 8
There are times in the Bible when the presence of God is manifest in unusual ways. People have called it a fresh breath of the Spirit. When it occurs, those people who have been running from God turn back to Him. Others have sensed a personal encounter with God. This is what happened in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah. God became real. The Spirit began to blow. The dried springs of devotion began to bubble again. When it did, some unusual things began to happen in the lives of these people. Verse 1 - "All the people gathered themselves together as one man in the street before the Water Gate, they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which God had commanded for Israel." The first mark was there was developed among them a fresh sense of unity. When you read through the Book of Nehemiah, you are aware they are a very fragmented people. They questioned whether Nehemiah ought to lead them. They pointed their finger at one another and said, "You're not doing what God wants you to do."
They began to look outside at their enemies. So you have a small group of bickering, fragmented, people. A fresh breath of the Spirit came, these people began to be molded together by the presence of God. One of the great marks of God's presence is that people are united under God. One of the marks of maturity of any believer is that not only is their relationship right with God, but their relationship with each other. One of the things that will occur when people feel the presence of God is that they want to have a sense of fellowship one with another. One of the things that God wants to do in our midst is not only to get us in our vertical relationships, but also in our horizontals. So, what you perhaps need to ask yourself is, "Are there barriers between me and others? Are there times in my life when I have become upset over what other people have done or what they have said so that my relationship with others is broken and fragmented?" Sometimes that happens when things outside the church are brought into the church. Sometimes it happens within the church and begins to spread throughout the congregation. Sometimes it happens because people get mad at each other. Sometimes it happens because people get mad at preachers. Whatever the reason, the first big thing that happens when the Spirit comes is our brokenness towards others is healed. When God's presence is felt, barriers begin to go down.
I need to remind you that in the Bible the responsibility for mending broken barriers never rests with the offender, it always rests with the person who is offended. All of my life I have heard, "Yes, I'm mad at somebody else, but if you knew what they did you'd be mad too." But never in the Bible is the responsibility on the person who did what was wrong. Always in the Bible, the responsibility is on the person who has been hurt. The Bible says, "If you bring your gifts to the altar, and you know that someone has aught against you, you leave your gift and you go to them." The question is not what they have done to you; the question is, are you Christ-like enough to forgive them? The responsibility is on you. Never once in the Bible are we given any excuse as believers to harbor grudges and hurts within our life, but rather we are to do the Christ-like thing and say, "I forgive you." I'm amazed sometimes at how we nurture hurts and grudges. I have talked with people about the grudges in their life, and I have had the impression that this happened last week, but it happened ten years ago, or twelve months ago, but it's on the front burner all the time. You are never going to be able to face the future for what God wants you to do if all you're doing is looking to the past.
I have sensed what happened in Nehemiah when the fresh breath of the Spirit blew on groups and congregations. One of the first times I experienced it was when I was a sophomore in college. I went to a Baptist College. On that college campus we still had revivals, and all of us gathered together in chapel one day to hear our revival speaker. He spoke so softly, and so slowly, and all of us young people said, "He's dead." So a group gathered one night in prayer - meeting in the boys' dormitory to pray for that old dead preacher. We started praying, and all of a sudden somebody said, "Well, we might as well stop praying." Well, I've never been in a prayer meeting where somebody said we ought to stop praying, so everybody listened as he said, "We ought to stop praying. We're not getting anywhere." He continued, "Jim, I want to tell you about the problem between me and you. When I first came to this campus, I had my eye on Sally. She had her eye on you. I disliked you from the very beginning, and I don't feel like I can keep on talking to God as long as my relationship with you is broken, and I want to ask you to forgive me." Well, those two went off in a room and we started praying again. After a while somebody said, "might as well stop." One fellow picked up and said, "Jerry, it's between me and you." They went off in a room together. Before the night was over, a prayer service that was designed to last fifteen minutes ended at six o'clock the next morning! The Spirit of God came across that group, and across that campus. God's presence made us deal honestly with our relationship with one another. I have learned enough about the Spirit to make this statement to you. If I go to bed at night and I have a barrier that has developed between me and someone else, I want to get it straight because I want the power of God upon my life.
I like what the preacher said in his sermon, "There ain't no love here. I can give you three reasons why there ain't no love here. There ain't no love here because it's been a month since there has been a pounding for the preacher. You do not love me. There ain't no love here. Second thing, there ain't no love here because we haven't had a wedding in this church in three months. You all don't even love each other. Ain't no love here. Third thing, there ain't no love here. Ain't nobody died in this church in six months. Even God doesn't love you anymore and doesn't want to take you to Heaven." I want to ask you, is there love here?
The second mark is in Verse 3: "He read them before the street, before the Water Gate, from morning until midnight, before all the men and the women, those who could understand, and all the ears of the people were attentive to the word of the law. The second mark was, there was a hunger for the word of God. When there's a fresh breath of the Spirit, what you will find is that you cannot get enough of God's word. You remember what Polemus said to Hamlet? "What do you read, my lord?" Words, words, words. That often describes our response to the Bible. But when the Spirit blows, the Book will come alive. Someone has said that sin will keep you from the Book, or the Book will keep you from sin, and when you are aware of the presence of God in your life, there is a deep desire to read and to study this Book.
When I first moved to Memphis, he was one of the leaders in the congregation. I suddenly realized he wasn't there. I then recognized that he was having a great deal of moral problems. He dropped out of church for seven years. One day I looked up and there he was back. His wife came to me and she said, "A miracle has taken place in our home and our family has been reunited and our marriage has been saved." One night sitting around the table, he confessed to his wife. He said, "I want you to know all the things that have been going on. I want to ask your forgiveness and I want to get it right. I want to get myself right with God." She said that night they went to bed, she woke up at three o'clock in the morning and realized he wasn't there. She thought he was ill so she rose to go see about him. She found him in the middle of their den, down on his knees, reading the word of God. Later he showed me his Bible and he had taken a yellow marker and when you flipped through his Bible it was like all yellow pages. Day and night he absorbed the word of God. Something's wrong in our life when all the Bible is is decoration in the house. When God's presence is felt, there is a hunger to want to know His word.
Notice the third mark. It is in Verse 6: "And Ezra blessed the Lord the great God, and all the people answered, 'Amen, Amen.' And they lifted up their hands, and they bowed their heads and they worshipped God with their faces to the ground." The third mark was they developed a spirit of praise. In the Bible, when people lifted their hands, it was a means of praising God. This was a means in which they recognized the presence of Him. Let me tell you how often we twist worship. If you would ask most people, "What do you hope to accomplish when you go to worship?" we'd say, "We hope God will give us a blessing." But worship in the Bible is not getting a blessing from God' worship in the Bible is us blessing God. In the process of blessing Him, we get a blessing. When I say, "Dear God, I lift my hands in praise to You. You are the great God. You are the majestic God. You are the loving God. I want to lift You up in my thoughts and my attitude today." When I praise Him, then I get blessed. When I begin to praise Him, and focus in on Him for what He has done and for all of His blessings in my life, there's a beautiful spirit of praise. When you go through a worship service and a person has never even picked up a song book, you know something is wrong, when there's not a spirit of expectancy and excitement or a spontaneity. Now you don't have to lift your hand, you can do that in your heart. But you say within, "Dear God, thank You for who You are and for all that You have done for us."
The fourth mark is in Verse 9 - "The fourth mark was confessing of sins. All the people wept when they heard the word of the Lord. Arthur Miller said at the end of a play, "My God, He's talking about me." What you are to confess means that all of the veneer that you have put around your life is broken. You are before God recognizing you are a sinner, and that you need His forgiveness and His help in your life. I spoke a moment ago about revival. Revivals used to have mourner's benches. People used to come to the front and kneel down and say, "Oh, God, I am a sinner." We've not only done away with mourner's benches, we've done away with mourning. When is the last time you ever got down beside your bed and said, "Dear God, I may look like I've got it all together on the outside, but on the inside I know it's wrong, and I want to get my life right with yours." When God's presence is felt, we want to do like Simon Peter, "Oh, Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man." People I know walk around with personalities like marbles. They've never gotten on their knees long enough to say, "Dear God, forgive me." That needs to happen in your life. When God is present, that's what will begin to happen.
Now the last mark is A Spirit of Joy in Verse 10. Ezra told them, "Go back home. Don't cry anymore. The joy of the Lord is our strength. There will be a fresh sense of joy in God." When I moved to Memphis, some of the deacons asked if I would go and see a man. His name was C. O. Barber. I had already picked up on that name because one of the big educational buildings was called The Barber Building. I said, "Is that the same Barber?" They said, "Yes, we named the building after him." Let me tell you about him. He was once the head of the Post Office Department for the City of Memphis, but for 39 years he was Sunday School Superintendent in our church. He could hardly wait to get off from the Post Office so he could work in the Sunday School. There was not a man nor a woman in that church who was active that C. O. Barber had not gone to their home and sat down and said, "I see in you potential and I want to claim you for God, and I want you to be a teacher and a worker." For 39 years he had done it and now he was 87, he was broken and frail, he couldn't come to the church anymore, and they asked me to go and see him. I read one day in a poem about a man of whom it was said, "And the glory of God eased through the pores of his skin." I was aware that I was in the presence of a Saint. So I sat down beside Mr. Barber and I said, "Mr. Barber, I'm your new pastor and I want to get a chance to know you." He turned to me and he said, "Well, you know, I won't be able to come anymore. I don't know what God's doing in my life, but I'm still here." I said, "I know that, but could I just come to see you regularly?" He replied, "As long as I am here I want you to come." Then he began to ask me about the church. He said, "You know, I was Sunday School Superintendent there a little while, 39 years." I said, "Yes, I know that." He said, "When I lay in this bed, my greatest regret is that I cannot serve Him in the way in which I have in the past." And then with a tear in his eyes he said, "The greatest joy in the world is serving Jesus Christ."
When you live in His presence, it is not, "Oh Lord, it is church time again," but to recognize our grandest privilege is to be in His presence. Some of us in this room need a fresh breath of spirit. For some of us it's performance and ritual, instead of person and reality. I wonder right now if you won't say, "Dear God, I want to open up to you and let that begin to happen in my life. I want to be open before you."