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So like I said in the episode before this, revolutionary fires are sparked by local revivals.

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So local revivals are in a locale. They often happen in a church or they happen in a particular

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situation where God's moving, but then it spreads out into revolutionary fires.

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And I gave some examples in the last episode, but today I want to talk about

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Nehemiah and Ezra and this revival and I believe national revolution that occurred

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through Nehemiah and Ezra. Just to give you a little background, Nehemiah is a cupbearer of

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the king. So he's actually in kind of a servant leadership role under the king of Persia,

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Artaxerxes I. And his job was actually to drink the wine or the juice, whatever the king was

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going to drink, he had to drink it first. So if it was poison, which was the assassination

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mode of choice at that time was to put something in a drink or put something in the food that would

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poison the king. So pretty trusted position, you think about it. And it also a pretty risky

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position for Nehemiah at least, because if Nehemiah drops over dead and they certainly know

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that there was something in the food, but that was his job. So very trusted to the king.

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And I won't go into all the details except that there was a vision given to

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Nehemiah about the state of Israel, which he's Jewish in background. He's actually in

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captivity in Persia of the wall being destroyed and the wall crumbling in the city of Jerusalem.

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So he gets a burden for the wall being rebuilt in Jerusalem and he weeps before the Lord and

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he repents before the Lord and he cries out to God for the restoration of the wall. And God's calling

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him to be the agent, to be the leader that he's called out to do this. So he goes before Artaxerxes,

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shares his vision and Artaxerxes is actually moved by the Lord also and allows Nehemiah

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to go back to Jerusalem. So Nehemiah goes back to Jerusalem and he becomes the governor

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of that area. So he has a political position of governor and he has with him also Ezra,

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who becomes a priest, is a priest in that area. So it's Ezra and Nehemiah together.

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And Nehemiah is really interesting. Lots of messages have been given about leadership

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using Nehemiah as a great text for that. I've done it myself. I've spoken on leadership before

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and oftentimes I've used Joshua and I've used Nehemiah. So this guy's a great leader,

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but that's not really the point here because it was one thing to rebuild the wall. And that's

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actually the first part of the book of Nehemiah is the rebuilding of the wall. And it is amazing.

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Seriously, it is just amazing. The talent, the gifting and the anointing that's on Nehemiah.

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He works to complete the wall. He finishes the wall in an incredible amount of time,

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phenomenal amount of time. And now Ezra, we pick it up actually in Nehemiah 8,

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Ezra, let me quote this, opened the book in the sight of all the people.

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He read distinctly from the book in the law of God, and he helped the people understand the

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reading. And that's Nehemiah 8, 1 through 8. And I've used this passage on countless times

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to support expositional teaching of the word, because there's no place in all the scripture

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that's more clear about how and the importance in our local churches, how to read and study God's

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word. He reads it, he gives the distinct meaning of it, and then he applies it to the people's

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lives. So that's Nehemiah 8, 1 through 8. But in this case, something really phenomenal happens.

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And that is that through the reading of the word, again, same as Josiah in the last episode,

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the people have not been hearing the word. They've not been reading the word.

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And remember, there was no Bibles. There's no little pocket laws of the 10 commandments that

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people carry around. There is the little box.

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And the phylacteries and some things like that that they have but not the the whole book

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It's just it was just too expensive for that to be out to the regular people

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So they haven't heard it in years and then Ezra reads it

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And there is just this it just breaks the hearts of people again. Same as Josiah

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There's a there's a move of the spirit that leads into repentance

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So in Nehemiah 8 9 we read all the people wept when they heard the words of the law

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So that's revival man. That's that's how revival begins and I talked about that in the last episode here again

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Just like with Josiah all the people are weeping and they're repenting before the Lord

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Because of the Word of God so men and women when the Word of God is read regularly in your life

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God uses that to convict your heart of sin. It's like a two-edged sword is what it says in Hebrews

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You know, it's a two-edged sword

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that

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pierces

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Soul and spirit bone and marrow the idea being like someone taking a two-edged

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Blade and driving it into your heart. So on the one blade on the one side

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It's conviction of sin and then on the other blade. It's compassion

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For our sins that we would grow up before we grow old and following the Lord and so

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This is what this is the nature of the Word of God is it convicts us of sin?

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And that's why any great revival that

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Is a true revival genuine revival sincere revival. There's a conviction of sin through the reading of the word

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so

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even with instruction from Ezra Nehemiah and the Levites to not

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Mourn or weep they tell him quit mourning quit weeping

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This is you need to have the joy of the Lord is your strength the people continue to repent and mourn before the Lord

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So with each passing day the people continue to repent in sackcloth fasting dust on their heads

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the people literally in Nehemiah 9

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Cannot be deterred as they stand and worship for hours at a time. So it's a fascinating study

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Pull out your Bibles sometime and read Nehemiah 8 and 9

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especially

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because

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They're standing for five to six hours where Ezra

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reads the word then they go into they go into fasting and prayer and mourning and

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Repentance like in a massive way and that goes on for days and days

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So now we move into what I think is a revolution so that's the revival part of it like with Josiah now

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It's a revolution and this revolutionary fire

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Begins to affect all of the remnant of Israel. That's in Jerusalem

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And the result is another covenant. Remember Josiah

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Drew up a covenant between the people and the Lord. Well

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Nehemiah does the same thing and maybe who knows maybe they were looking back and

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Seeing what Josiah done as an example

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But Nehemiah and Ezra draw up a covenant for all of the nation of Israel to sign and seal

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So this is what's interesting about this particular

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Revolution is it involves the priest and

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The political leader the governor Nehemiah, so it's Nehemiah and

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It's Ezra

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So this is mass repentance that comes by the leaders and the people

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Resulting in the joining. I mean just quote Nehemiah 1029

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Joining of the people and the nobles into a curse and oath

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To walk in God's law and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God and

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His ordinances and his statutes in quote

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So as the law is continually studied there among the people

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there is this massive reformation that comes in and I was I was reading it last night and

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It's pretty intense

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pretty intense

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Revolution because what had happened is even among the priesthood

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There's there's a regular people, but there's also in the priesthood among the Levites

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These guys had married foreign wives

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so

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So this move of God

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Nehemiah leads the charge in telling the priests the nobles look you have to you have to have no more foreign

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Wives you need to turn from that you need to reject that all over the nation and even uses in the last chapter

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Nehemiah he's a Solomon and

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example where he says, Hey, Solomon was the greatest king we've ever had.

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He was the wisest man, wisest king we've ever had.

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And yet, even he, his heart was turned by his foreign wives.

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So he commands them to turn in Nehemiah 10 through 13.

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It just turned from these foreign wives.

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So pretty huge.

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I mean, if you can imagine you married to someone and this move of God occurs

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and you're so reprimanded, I mean, it's just it's incredible.

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But it's definitely a reformation.

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So here's the patterns again.

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I read these before.

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I want to just say them again.

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The patterns of revival and revolution.

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Number one, revival was sparked by the reading of God's word.

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As with Josiah, same with Ezra and Nehemiah.

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There's a reading of God's word.

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Number two, revival is a result of repentance from sin.

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So Josiah tears his clothes.

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And Nehemiah and the people cannot stop grieving,

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mourning and repenting of their sin, even with Nehemiah and Ezra

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telling people the joy of the Lord is your strength.

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Don't grieve.

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We've completed the wall.

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This is a time of rejoicing.

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Even with that, the people continue to grieve over their sin.

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Number three, revival is marked by a fear of God.

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As with Josiah, the people in Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah

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can't stop the worship.

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So worship just explodes there in Jerusalem.

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And then fourthly, revival sparks a national revolution of transformation.

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Governor Nehemiah from a secular political side

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and then Ezra from a spiritual side

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institute reforms that impact the entire nation

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of the remnant of Israel and Jerusalem at that time.

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So again, it's another beautiful example of some of these four key areas

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that are true with revival and revolution.

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Number one, revolution was sparked by the reading of God's word.

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Number two, revival is a result of repentance from sin.

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Number three, revival is marked by a fear of God.

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And then lastly, revival sparks a national revolution of transformation.

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So in our next segment, I want to look at the book of Acts in the early church.

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My thesis is going to be that revival

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sparked revolution that sparked

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what we now call the Christian church all over the world.

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So tune in, check that out.

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And God bless you until we listen to each other again.