Well, good morning. let me have you guys, turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 8. I want to take a few minutes to, introduce what we're going to, be doing today, which is, different than anything we've ever done. So if you're visiting here today, this is not our normal, way that we format our, service, but I want to begin in Nehemiah 8 to, Serve as a, as an explanation for what we're going to do.
In Nehemiah 8, this is really, the Book of Nehemiah is a fascinating book. In this book, we, read the story of the Jews return from their 70 years of captivity in Babylon. They had been in captivity because of the judgment of God upon them for disobeying God's law. And but after 70 years had gone by, the Jews began to return to their homeland in the providence of God, largely and partly through Nehemiah and the leadership of men like Nehemiah and also Ezra.
But in Nehemiah chapter 8, there is many of the Jews have returned to Jerusalem, returned to their land in fulfillment of the promise of God. And we read in Nehemiah 8 of a time of worship that they had. Here in chapter 8. If you look in chapter 8, verse 1, it says, and all the people gathered as one man at the square, which was in front of the Watergate, and they asked Ezra, the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel.
So the people actually asked for this. They, they came to Ezra and said, Can you go get the word of God? Can you go get the scriptures? Can you go get the book of the law?...
