And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; for he was above all the people. And as he opened it, all the people stood and Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands, and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
– Nehemiah 8:5–6
I love this scene. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the whole Bible. When Ezra stands before God’s people, all he does is open up the Book of the Law.
Nehemiah 8:5–6 teaches us to revere the Word of God.
He opens up God’s Word, and all the people stand up. Ezra blesses them. The people are answering, shouting, “Amen, Amen,” with their hands in the air, and then they bow their heads and they worship God with their faces on the ground. All in response just to the Word of God.
All it takes is God’s Word to open up the wonder of God’s revelation of himself. God’s law, God’s commands, and they’re on their faces in worship. Do you revere God’s Word like this? Do you see the Bible for what it is? The revelation of who God is, how much he loves us, how he has made a way for our salvation, for us to have life forever with him.
This Word that reveals our sinfulness, our tendencies to turn from God’s love for us, God’s Word to us and do things our own way. And yet, this Word that reveals God’s grace to us, God’s willingness to forgive us of our sin and to draw us back to himself, to redeem us and to lead us and to guide us and to direct us in this world, to give us promises in his word to stand on no matter what this world brings us.
Nehemiah 8:5–6 encourages us to live to obey the Word of God.
There is nothing like the Bible. There’s nothing like the Word of God in all the world. So revere it, love it, open it, kneel before it daily, and meditate on it. Read it, soak it in, and live to obey it and worship God through it. May there be times in your life, may there be times in our churches where we are just on our faces before God, where this word before us because we love it, because we praise him for it and we praise him through it. Oh God, we pray for this kind of reverence for your Word in our day, for this kind love for your Word in our day, for this kind of worship through your word in our day, in our rooms alone with you, and rooms where we gather together before you.
God, we pray that what was true in Nehemiah 8:5–6 would be true in our lives and in our churches today. Help us, teach us to revere and love and worship through your Word like this. And God, we pray for people who don’t have this Word. God, we pray for Bible-less peoples today. Help us to change that. We praise you for the opportunities we have today to get the Bible translated into every language in the world, how that’s possible in the next 10 years. God help us to be faithful to do it. And we pray for the spread of Bible translations as they’re finished among all the nations.
Prayer for the Bairagi People
God, we pray specifically today for the Bairagi people of India and Nepal. Lord, we pray for the spread of your Word to them, that they might hear the good news of your love for them and worship you in response to your Word.
God, we pray for that among every people group and language in the world… That they would hear the word from you of your love for them… And you’d help us as your people to give our lives to getting your Word to them… No matter what that looks like in each of our lives… In our praying like we are doing right now, in our giving, in our going and our working. God, help us to spread your word so that all the peoples of the earth might worship you with their faces to the ground because of your Word to them. We pray all of this according to your word in Nehemiah 8:5–6. In Jesus name, oh God, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
