A History of Sin, A History of Grace

Nehemiah 9:1-25 · 2026-02-22 · Nehemiah | From Rubble to Revival

Nehemiah 9:1-25 · Prayer. A History of Sin, A History of Grace — sermon from Cypress Bible Church on BibleSlides.

A History of Sin, A History of Grace Nehemiah 9:1-38 (A History of Sin, A History of Grace) Nehemiah chapter 9 is the longest prayer in the Bible. We are dividing this prayer up between this week and next week. This week is praising God for his goodness. Second week is confessing our sins for our failure. Emotional Whiplash. We really need to take a second and put ourselves in the shoes of what these people have just experienced. There is some SERIOUS emotional whiplash going on here. It’s important to get your mind, emotions and imagination into the highs and the lows represented in what the nation of Israel has just experienced. The Wall So let’s rewind back to Persia. You have Nehemiah, leading tens of thousands of people back to the land. A 900 mile journey. The journey in and of itself would have been an emotional high at the front and and emotion LOW to arrive at a city that is a PILE of rubble. Nehemiah surveys the wall. And then you have the HIGH of beginning construction. Everybody gets excited. But then you have the LOW of opposition from Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem and the Arabs and the inhabitants of Ashdod. Then after 52 days of building the wall you have this incredible HIGH . And so the people gather together. Rosh HaShanna Then in chapter 8:1. We read that the people assembled on the first day of the month of Tishre to read the book of the law. This was New Year’s Day. And we are going to show a calendar here, because this is important. Step 1 All the people assembled, men, women, children. And the Spirit of God used that exposure to the Word to move the congregation into a state of deep conviction, grief and sorrow. They realized that they were not honoring the Lord. They had not been obedient to the Law. But strangely, the priests interrupted that mourning. This is not a day about you. This is a day about the LORD. Go home and celebrate. Go home and drink wine. The Joy of the Lord is your Strength. That was New Year’s Day. Day 2 Step 2 Then on Tishri2, we see that the leaders and heads of houses gathered for a second session to study the law. They recognized there was an entire feast of God that they had not been celebrating. It was the feast of Booths, It’s also called Sukkot. It’s also called tabernacles. Those names are all synonyms for the same thing. So they recognized that they had not been celebrating this feast for many many decades. So they got all ramped up about obeying the Lord in this way. So they are on day 2. Sukkot begins on the 15th day of the month. But something happens between day 2 and day 15. Day of Atonement Now it’s not mentioned in the text, but notice there’s this holiday here. Step 3 Yom Kippur. That’s on Tishri 10. I n Hebrew, Yom is day and kippor…

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