Nehemiah 7:4-8:18
Now that is how to preach. Ezra starts his 4 hour marathon at dawn and doesn’t stop exegeting until the heat of the mid-day sun is scorching his brow. And the people are rapt in attention. They are weeping. And they go off and change. They go and do things different; they turn to repentance and then they turn to celebration and then they turn to obedience. In a day when preaching is being questioned as an art-form, surely this passage speaks up in its defence. Good, biblical, Spirit-filled preaching can arrest the senses. It can grip hearts and expose sin. It can also channel emotions to the glory of God. It can steer us to reverence - real reverence, real joyful reverence. And preaching can move a people-group. Preaching can stir and inspire a community like very little else. It can be like the word of God for the people, uniting them and encouraging them and leading them into very great joy.
Revelation 18:17b-19:10
“For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” In our day the wedding is about the bride. She is the star attraction. Her dress is the thing that people talk about (or at least that is what I’m told people talk about - all the dresses look the same to me). But here it is the groom that gets the plaudits. It is the groom that everyone is raving about. All the guests are kicking their chairs out the way and prostrating themselves before the groom. And the bride hasn’t even walked down the aisle yet. As the Pachelbel Cannon starts to play no-one can take their eyes off the groom. No-one can stop raving about his awesomeness. For he has just won the great, cosmic, epoch-defining victory (but more of that tomorrow). But if you were to look closely at this dazzling groom you would see his eyes were fixed in one place. You would see his smile was tweaked towards one thing - the whole church of Jesus. The groom has given his bride a fine dress, the groom has helped his church live right. He has saved us and he will wed himself to us - all of us from every age and country and denomination and language - because he loves us. Glory to his name.
Psalm 148:1-6
That is some serious praise-megamix he has got in mind.
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