Connect360: Time to Celebrate
- Lesson Twelve in the Connect360 unit “Kingdom Assignment: The Relentless Pursuit of Obedience” focuses on Nehemiah 12:40-47.
The dedication of the new wall was punctuated with pure joy. The people realized God was instrumental in the wall’s completion and worthy of their praise and worship.
The dedication included hymns of thanksgiving and songs accompanied by cymbals, harps and lyres.
The priests and the Levites purified themselves and then the people, and even the gates and the walls.
Two great choirs circled the city on the top of the wall leading from the Valley Gate, one counterclockwise and the other in the opposite direction, both proceeding to the Temple.
They began where Nehemiah started his inspection of the walls just months earlier. The two choirs took their places in the house of God and were joined by Nehemiah and half of the officials.
Some of the priests celebrated with trumpets and others sang with Jezrahiah their leader.
“On that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy, even the women and children rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard from afar” (12:43).
The people performed worship to their God, services of purification and sang songs of praise and hymns of thanksgiving to God. Then they read aloud from the book of Moses (13:1).
This day was quite a contrast from the complacency of the people and deplorable conditions of the city as described by Nehemiah’s brother Hanani in chapter one.
God raised up an unlikely leader who was willing to obey—who resisted opposition from within and threats from outside—and who wouldn’t stop until the task was complete.
The project was so great, only God was praised.
The celebration in Nehemiah 12 was the culmination of preparation and planning. The leaders purified themselves, others and even the walls and the gates. Would we dare seek to lead others in the presence of God while harboring impurity in our own lives?
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