Ezekiel 37:1-14 The hand of the LORD was on me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD… I. THERE IS TO BE A POLITICAL RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. Israel is now blotted out from the map of nations; her sons are scattered far and wide; her daughters mourn beside all the rivers of the earth. But she is to be restored; she is to be restored "as from the dead." She is to be reorganised; her scattered bones are to be brought together. There will be a native government again; there will again be the form of a body politic; a state shall be incorporated, and a king shall reign. "I will place you in your own land," is God's promise to them, They shall again walk upon her mountains, shall once more sit under her vines and rejoice under her fig trees. And they are also to be reunited. There shall not be two, nor ten, nor twelve, but one — one Israel praising one God, serving one king, and that one king the Son of David, the descended Messiah. They are to have a national prosperity which shall make them famous; nay, so glorious shall they be that Egypt, and Tyre, and Greece, and Rome shall all forget their glory in the greater splendour of the throne of David. II. ISRAEL IS TO HAVE A SPIRITUAL RESTORATION OR A CONVERSION. Both the text and the context teach this. The promise is that they shall renounce their idols, and, behold, they have already done so. Weaned forever from the worship of all images, of whatever sort, the Jewish nation has now become infatuated with traditions or duped by philosophy. She is to have, however, instead of these delusions, a spiritual religion: she is to love her God. "They shall be My people, and I will be their God." The unseen but omnipotent Jehovah is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth by His ancient people; they are to come before Him in His own appointed way, accepting the Mediator whom their sires rejected; coming into covenant relation with God, for so our text tells us, "I will make a covenant of peace with them," and Jesus is our peace, therefore we gather that Jehovah shall enter into the covenant of grace with them, that covenant of which Christ is the federal head, the substance, and the surety. They are to walk in God's ordinances and statutes, and so exhibit the practical effects of being united to Christ who hath given them peace. III. THE MEANS OF THAT RESTORATION. Observe that there are two kinds of prophesying spoken of here. First, the prophet prophesies to the bones — here is preaching; and next, he prophesies to the four winds — here is praying. 1. It is the duty and the privilege of the Christian Church to preach the Gospel to the Jew, and to every creature, and in so doing she may safely take the vision before us as her guide. (1) She may take it as her guide, first, as to matter. What are we to preach? The text says we are to prophesy, and assuredly every missionary to the Jews should especially keep God's prophecies very prominently before the public eye. Every man has a tender side and a warm heart towards his own nation, and if you tell him that in your standard book there is a revelation made that that nation is to act a grand part in human history, and is, indeed, to take the very highest place in the parliament of nations, then the man's prejudice is on your side, and he listens to you with the greater attention. But still the main thing which we have to preach about is Christ. Preach His hallowed life, the righteousness of His people; declare His painful death, the putting away of all their sins. Vindicate His glorious resurrection, the justification of His people; tell of His ascent on high, their triumph over the world and sin; declare His second advent, His glorious coming, to make His people glorious in the glory which He hath won for them, and Christ Jesus, as He is thus preached, shall surely be the means of making these bones live. Let this preaching resound with sovereign mercy; let it always have in it the clear and distinct ring of free grace. Man has a will, and God never ignores that will, but by His almighty grace He blessedly leads it in silken fetters. Preach, preach, preach, then, but let it be the preaching of Christ, and the proclamation of free grace. The Church, I say, has a model here as to the matter of preaching. (2) And I am certain that she has also a model here as to her manner of preaching. The manner of our preaching is to be by way of command, as well as by way of teaching. Repent and be converted, every one of you. Lay hold on eternal life. "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."(3) We have a model here, moreover, as to our audience. We are not to select our congregation, but we are to go where God sends us; and if He should send us into the open valley, where the bones are Very dry, we are to preach there. Do not say, "Such-and-such a man is too bigoted"; the case rests not with him, nor with his bigotry, but with God. These bones were very dry, but yet they lived. Let not, therefore, the greater viciousness of a people, or their greater hardness of heart, ever stand in our way, but let us say to them, dry as they are, "Ye dry bones, live."(4) And here, again, we have another lesson as to the preacher's authority. If you will observe, you will see the prophet says, "Hear the Word of the Lord." Always put to your fellowman the truth which you hold dear, not as a thing which he may play with or may do what he likes with, which is at his option to choose or to neglect as he sees fit; but put it to him as it is in truth, the Word of God; and be not satisfied unless you warn him that it is at his own peril that he rejects the invitation, and that on his own head must be his blood if he turns aside from the good word of the command of God. (5) I cannot leave this point without noticing how the prophet describes the effect of his preaching — there was a voice, and there was a noise. Is this stir, then, the stir of opposition, or is it the stir of inquiry? Anything is better than stagnation: of a persecutor I have quite as much hope as of a quiet despiser. 2. After the prophet had prophesied to the bones, he was to prophesy to the winds. He was to say to the blessed Spirit, the Life-giver, the God of all grace, "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." Preaching alone doth little; it may make the stir, it may bring the people together, but there is no life-giving power in the Gospel of itself apart from the Holy Spirit. The "breath" must first blow, and then these bones shall live. Let us betake ourselves much to this form of prophesying. Observe that this second prophesying of Ezekiel is just as bold and as full of faith as the first. He seems to have no doubt, but speaks as though he could command the wind. "Come," saith he, and the wind cometh. Little faith, Mender harvests; much faith, plenteous sheaves. Let your prayer, then, be with a sense of how much you need it, but yet with a firm conviction that the Holy Spirit will most surely come in answer to your prayers. And then let it be earnest prayer. That "Come from the four winds, O breath," reads to me like the cry, not of One in despair, but of one who is full of a vehement desire, gratified with what he sees, since the bones have come together, and have been mysteriously clothed with flesh, but now crying passionately for the Immediate completion of the miracle — "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, |
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