NEHEMIAH 8 (FROM CAC'S NOTES)
NEHEMIAH 8 (FROM CAC’S NOTES)
It is after the wall is built, and the doors set up and watchfulness maintained to preserve what has been recovered, that the Scriptures get their place, as in Nehemiah 8. The Scriptures cannot be read with understanding where the principle of separation from iniquity is not obeyed. A sect is, in its very nature, contrary to the truth: it is something less than the city of God, so that there cannot be any enlargement on sectarian grounds. We cannot use the word ‘assembly’ without thinking of one company. Indeed, all the words by which God has spoken to His people — as saints, children, sons, flock, bride, body, temple, house, kingdom, assembly — refuse to take on a sectarian character. It seems to me that the building of the wall means that the principle of unity is recognised, and it is felt to be necessary to secure it by separation from all that is contrary to it. It does not need an advanced stage of intelligence to see that the assembly is one company. We walk together as recognising that and we separate from what is contrary to it. Then the whole of Scripture can have its place:
[p. 269] it can all be accommodated within the wall. Many have been told when they have tried to bring Scripture into a sect, ‘We do not want that teaching here’. There is not room for it there.
Every Christian should look out for a place where there is room for the Scriptures, where every scripture can be looked in the face. It is a characteristic feature of the great revival that saints come together to read the Scriptures with understanding. Outside that movement people are content that the clergyman or the minister should know; it is his business to know. But that another man knows is no gain to me; I only gain by what I understand myself. There were a number of other brethren always with Ezra; it was not a one-man matter.
The people wept when they heard the law. They felt how they came short of all that was presented. And that is how we feel always when we come under the power of Scripture. But God would not have us overwhelmed by the sense of our own failure when we read the Scriptures. They bring to us the knowledge of Himself so that whenever we read or hear the Scriptures the day is holy; this is said three times (verses 9, 10, 11).