The Word And Spirit - Ezekiel 37:1-14

so if you are joining us one thing you should know about us as a church is that we've been reading the Bible basically from cover to cover together we started in the book of Genesis we're now kind of halfway through the Bible we're in section of the Bible called the prophets and we've talked about two of the major prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah today we're going to talk about a third the prophet Ezekiel and let me just say a few things if you turn with me in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 37 we're gonna read verses 1 through 14 together if you didn't bring your own Bibles you can find that on page 1349 in our church Bibles let me say a few things just by way of introduction we're trying to see the big picture through the trees so to speak as we gather together here on Sundays we're reading the Bible on our own through the week here's kind of the big picture Ezekiel was a prophet during the time of the exile and if you're unfamiliar with that term the Exile let me just say a little this is a story of God's people at one point they were slaves in Egypt God brought them out from there he brought them into the promised land he settled them there in their home in the promised land as he did that he said listen nation of Israel if you obey me if you hold fast to me if you trust me if you love me you're gonna be blessed here there's gonna be tremendous blessings for you in this land I'm gonna be your guide you're gonna be my people but if you disobey me if you turn aside for me if you turn after other gods then you're gonna be cursed so cursed in fact that I'm finally gonna kick you out of this place this will no longer be your home and if you know the story of God's people you know when they got into the land there were moments where they really did trust in God but as the story goes forward they turn aside from him they turn to other gods they become indistinguishable from all the other nations and so finally this is what happens under God's direction the nation of Babylon and this actually happened in history the nation of Babylon the Empire came and swept through Jerusalem destroyed the temple destroyed the city and took all of the people and deported them from that place they are banished from their home they had to leave they actually physically the the survivors in that battle were moved to the nation of Babylon and it's actually that's the Exile they're exiled banished from their home it's in the midst of that that God raises up a prophet whose name is Ezekiel and he comes with a message in the midst of very dark and difficult times a real message of hope the passage we're gonna be reading today is a message that I think it's probably the most well known in the Book of Ezekiel it by the way is a message of tremendous hope I don't know what you walk through these doors with today maybe Mamie you're somebody who is just on the brink and you may have even decided before you came here today that really in your life circumstances there really is no hope I think this message for you just when you think there is no hope there is because of God's activity in the world today join me as we're in together I encourage you to have your Bibles open I'll just remind you that this is the Word of God as I read beginning in verse 1 the hand of the Lord was on me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and sent me in the middle of a valley it was full of bones he led me back and forth among them and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley bones that were very dry he asked me son of man can these bones live I said Sovereign Lord you alone know then he said to me prophesy to these bones and say to them dry bones hear the word of the Lord this is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones I will make breath enter you and you will come to life I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin I will put breath in you and you will come to life then you will know that I am the Lord so I prophesied as I was commanded and as I was prophesying there was a noise a rattling sound and the bones came together bone to bone I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them but there was no breath in them then he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy Son of Man and say to it this is what the sovereign Lord says come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live so I prophesied he commanded me and breath entered them they came to life and stood up on their feet a vast army then he said to me son of man these bones are the people of Israel they say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone we are cut off therefore prophesy and say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says my people I'm going to open your graves and bring you up from them I will bring you back to the land of Israel then you my people will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and I bring you up from them I will put my spirit in you and you will live and I will settle you in your own land then you will know that I the LORD have spoken and I have done it declares the Lord now just a little bit about how this passage works so that you know the first 10 verses of this passage are a vision that Ezekiel has all the sudden the Spirit of the Lord shows up he finds himself in the midst of a vision and God shows him what he needs to see beginning in verse 11 there is the interpretation of that vision that God gives to Ezekiel and since it's a vision I think it's important that as much as possible with your own mind's eye you see what Ezekiel saw you've got a if you would take it in so back to verse 1 says the hand of the Lord was on me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and sent me in the middle of a valley now in your mind's eye I want you to try and picture a valley there's mountains on one side and on the other and then there's in the middle this wide-open valley at least in my mind's eye the valley is is dry its dusty I personally see tumbleweeds but I mean use your own imagination whatever you see there in the midst of that valley there's this valley probably you should know this I mean there's some things that ought to be dawning on us as we get into this passage in biblical times especially valleys were the place that battles were fought this is what would happen army is what would oppose each other one would take as it's a stronghold one on the opposite mountain would be the other army and they would come down into the valley to meet for battle take as an example the story in the Bible where David fights Goliath we read that the Israelites were on one mountain and the Philistines were on the other mountain and they came down into the valley to fight that battle David vs Goliath and this is just the way it was and that's important because as we get into the passage you're gonna see that eventually it's gonna dawn on us this valley was a place where a battle was fought so hopefully in your mind's eye you've seen this valley and now there's words it was full of Bones now again in your own minds eye you've got a picture of this it's not just any bones becomes clear as we continue to read the passage that that is human bones these are skeletons dry dusty dead disconnected skeletons and as Ezekiel sees this picture I mean the spirit brings him out there he settles in he's in that Valley some things are dawning on him there's a battle that's been fought here these are the remains of those who have lost and verse 2 says this he led me back and forth among them now again you just got a picture of the scene in your own eye it's as though goddess is leaning Ezekiel to just walk through the valleys he's probably stepping over bones I mean there's a skull here and a femur there and he just goes back and forth and as you're picturing this in your mind's eye just walking back and forth it's like Ezekiel is taking this in slowly but surely what the scene is is dawning on him I mean he gets it at first he sees it it's a valley there's bones there but the longer he's there the more he sees it he gets it he comprehends where he is and what's happened here now as we're talking together there's probably some things that dawned on Ezekiel that might not immediately dawn on us unless we're really familiar with the Old Testament and here's the thing let me just take a moment to walk through some passages in the Old Testament I referenced this earlier when God brought his people into the promised land he said this if you obey me you're gonna be blessed in fact you'll be tremendously blessed but then later God says if you if you disobey me you're gonna be cursed and here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna just read a passage from Deuteronomy chapter 28 that enumerates these blessings and curses I want you just to listen you can look it up on your own later but I want you to hear some of the blessings and some of the curses that were spoken to God's people and this sort of rang in their ears if you were an Israelite in the Old Testament living in the promised land these pluses and curses would have just rung in your ears if you obey the Lord your God and follow carefully follow his commands I give you today the Lord your God will set you above all the nations on the earth and all these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God you'll be blessed in the city and blessed in the country the fruit of your womb will be blessed the crops of your land and the young of your livestock the calves of your herds and the Lambs of your flock your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed you'll be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out there's a whole lot of other blessings that getting numerated and then this section on curses however if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all those commands a decrees I'm giving you today all these curses will come on you and overtake you you'll be cursed in the city and cursed in the country your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed the fruit of your womb will be cursed the crops of your land and the calves of your herds and the Lambs of your flocks you'll be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out you hear you hear this I mean God had clearly said to the Israelites listen if you obey me you're gonna be blessed blessed blessed blessed but if you fail to obey me if you turn aside from me you'd be cursed cursed cursed and he enumerates even more curses I'm gonna put these on the screen as this passage continues about the curses this is what God says the Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies you'll come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven and you'll become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth in other words listen if you're obeying me enemies come against you you'll defeat them but if you're disobeying me I'm gonna let those enemies just overtake you and as a passage goes on it says this your carcasses will be food for all the birds in the wild animals there'll be no one to frighten them away by the way especially in Old Testament times it was like the greatest indignity the worst curse that after you died your remains would just be left in the open to rot away I mean you at least expected a proper burial it would be like the worst curse ever if there was no one to afford you a proper burial and that's what this passage mentions I mean that wild dogs and animals come and eat away your flesh and birds pick at your bones and until they're dry that's the worst curse ever now Ezekiel's walking back and forth in a valley what happens in a valley battles there's an army a whole lot of people who have who have died their bodies have been left there no one has come to give them a proper burial and wild animals birds have come and picked away their flesh so that all that's left our bones that are very dry is the seen sinking in on you what's happened these bones who are they then the nation of Israel they disobeyed god what's happened to them all the curses that God said have come upon them and now they're dead dry bones lie just there in a valley where wild animals and birds came to pick up their flesh they are a cursed people as that scene sets in on Ezekiel God has a question for Ezekiel and this is his question he says son of man can these bones live okay picturing them in your mind's eye you see the dry dusty dead skeletons what's the answer to that question can those bones live I mean the obvious answer is no I mean listen I was born at night but not last night dead skeletons I mean there's no Frankenstein experiments they don't live again right but it's almost in deference to God who asked this question that he doesn't say the obvious answer he just as well Sovereign Lord you alone know like I guess I don't know you alone know what the answer to that question is verse floor then this is all part of the vision he says to me prophesy to these bones and say to them dry bones hear the word of the Lord you should know this that in the Old Testament we have that word prophesy it basically would be just as easily translated preach so Ezekiel here's what I want you to do preach dry bones hear the word of God now let me just say something as a guy who every once in a while preaches I first to a whole group of different people and and I can say this there's there's some mornings when I get up on stage and I look out and you're alive I see it in your eyes I mean maybe the sun's shining more brightly that day you came man yeah I mean the singing was wonderful and I step up to preach and it's like yes I see this is going somewhere and somebody is Amen in me and I mean you know it's great yeah thank you I wasn't looking for that but feel free there are other days and I don't know what it is it's like there's just a collective funk maybe it's me I don't know what it is but I stand up to preach and I mean it's not going anywhere and I sometimes I walk offstage and I think well next week you know I mean it's like I'm just barely keeping people from falling asleep and I know that if I walked in these doors today and seen it in front of me were a bunch of skeletons I probably would not get real excited about it like here this morning something's going to happen Holy Spirit let's bring it you know what good is it gonna do what good is it going to do and yet that's exactly the assignment that God gives to Ezekiel hey Ezekiel seen these dead bones start preaching here the word of the Lord dry bones this is what the sovereign Lord says and there's this message of good news I'll make breath entering you'll come to life I'll attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin I'll put breath in you you'll come to life then you'll know that I'm the Lord and I don't know I just picturing this in my own mind but easy heals like well okay so says so I preached just as I was commanded and as I was preaching there was a noise a rattling sound bones coming together I don't know you got to just hear this in your own minds ear like kind of rattling sound of bones kind of just starting to shake and then coming together and and finally there they're attaching you know the foot bone to the ankle bone the ankle bone to the leg bone the leg bone to the hip bone I'm sure you could make a good song about it and it's just through the process of preaching things start to happen and all of a sudden their their skin and tendons and flesh that kind of out of nowhere are just swirling and flying onto these bones but at the end of verse 8 there's no breath in them they're just bodies so there's this command okay we've still got a problem we've got full bodies but they're not breathing yet then he said to me preach prophesy to the breath preach Son of Man and say to it this is what the sovereign Lord says come o breath from the four wrens and breathe into these slain that they may live so I preached he says just as I was commanded and breath entered them and they came to life and stood up on their feet a vast army and by now I mean if you've pictured this in your own minds I then maybe you've already started to kind of hear what this passage is about it's a process of death to life the process moving from curses to blessings that the process of moving from absolute hopelessness to complete hope and what has made the difference it's the preaching of God's Word and by the way I mentioned this beginning in verse 11 there's an interpretation of this vision and God says to Ezekiel son of man these bones are the people of Israel you've seen a vision and you've seen what's happened in this vision the people of Israel this is what they're saying right now our bones are dried up our hope is gone were cut off okay they had disobeyed God God gave him so many different chances they had never followed through he finally just allowed all the curses to come on them they've been deported exported exiled to a foreign land and I mean it's dawned on them at some point this is hopeless we're done in we really messed up we're not gonna get another chance the temples destroyed it's over we're cast out from God's presence and they're cut off which also is cursing language these are people who are who are dead who are curse who are hopeless and God says okay verse 12 therefore what do you do you preach prophesy say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says and the preaching is a message of good news my people I'm going to open your graves and bring you up from them I'll bring you back to the land of Israel then you my people will know that I'm the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them I'll put my spirit in you and you'll live and I'll settle you in your own land then you will know that I the LORD have spoken I have done it declares the Lord hopefully by now you've caught the emphasis of this passage right when things are hopeless when it's dark when we feel like there is no way just when we think there is no hope at all there is and you know want to know why because we have a God who speaks to us through his word and at least for me I've really come to believe in the power of the preaching of God's Word I just know I've seen it with my own eyes when when God's Word has preached there's something powerful things happen the Dead come back to life the hopeless find hope those who are cursed find blessing I mean something happens is why I believe in preaching and it's right here in this passage I mean the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword when his word has preached things happen and that's one of the message of the passage there's another message and I don't want you to miss it another theme that you just have to see look with me again at verse 1 says the hand the Lord was on me and he brought me out by the spirit and there is the leading of the Spirit that drives this passage you wouldn't recognize it as we're reading through the NIV but the original language really emphasizes this the word spirit in this passage the Hebrew word for spirit is in this these fourteen verses no less than 10 times the same word that is here translated spirit is in other places translated breath or translated wind and we miss it because there's these different words that it's translated to but there's a real emphasis on the spirit so it's here in verse 1 you see it at the end of verse 8 I looked tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them but there was it says here no breath in them but the original Hebrew says there's no spirit in them therefore prophesied to the see it says breath prophesy to the spirit prophesy Son of Man and say to it this is what the sovereign Lord says come spirit from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may lived so I prophesied as he has commanded me and here it says breath entered them but the original Hebrew says the spirit entered them they came to life and stood on their feet a vast army the spirit is also there in the interpretation of the vision therefore verse 12 prophesy and say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says my people I'm going to open your graves bring you up from them I'll bring you back to the land of Israel then you might people will know I'm the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them I will put my spirit in you and you'll live I'll settle you and your land then you'll know that I the LORD have spoken I've done it declares the Lord the spirit is there working hand-in-hand with the preaching of God's Word and I'll just say this when it comes to bringing life from death and blessing from curses and hope from hopelessness the Spirit of God is right there in the mixed with preaching here's my observation about Christians about churches it's almost as if Christians and churches want to pit the word in the spirit against each other how do I say that there's some churches you go there and they are all about the word right it's it's the word we're gonna just you know kind of this spiritual like touchy-feely stuff that's not us we're all about the word and I mean exegesis and homiletics and hermeneutics and doctrine I mean were the word and then there's other churches and they're about the spirit I mean you go there and there's praise and people are rolling the aisles and the Spirit is here and it's palpable and we feel it but but yeah let's not get too caught away with the Bible and with doctrine and the Word of God let's just get moved up in the spirit I don't know why I mean I just meet so many Christians it's like one or the other I see so many churches just one or the other there's an old little rhyme that I think helps and here's how it goes if we live by the word alone we dry up if we live by the spirit alone we blow up if we live by the word and the spirit we grow up and I just want you to see that in this passage the word and the spirit are together and we ought to believe that with all the heart that wherever the word is being proclaimed and preached and studied and taught that God's Spirit moves in a powerful way it's one of the reasons why at the beginning of every time I start to preach we have a prayer that calls upon the work of the Holy Spirit because he works and he's living in the active and where his word is claimed the spirit works and that's what this passage is where there's light and darkness where there's hope from hopelessness where there's life from death where there's blessings from curses it's the word and the spirit and that's key all right now let's let's just take one step deeper so you know there's a context to this this vision is given an interpretation and the seed of that interpretation is in the people who are living in Babylon who are exiled they've been banished from their home and they feel like they're cut off and they have no hope the words that God speaks says hey listen I am going to do something about it verse 12 prophesy and say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says my people I'm gonna open your graves and bring you up from them I will bring you back to the land of Israel in other words God is going to do something just when you think there is no hope there is because what God's Word and Spirit is doing but but the words that are used here I mean in history in fact this is what happened eventually by God's miraculous intervention God's people did go back to the promised land but the words are used here there they're so much bigger than just the initial fulfillment of God's people you know quietly going back and re settling in Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple these words I'm going to open your graves I'm gonna put my spirit in you and you will really live and I want you to realize this that this passage is really the story of the entire Bible now here's how the Bible begins this way God he created everything there is at the very end at the pinnacle of his creation he created human beings he made them in His image the Bible describes that when God created us he breathed into our nostrils the breath of life we were alive alive to God but you the story of the Bible goes Adam and Eve weren't content to just do things God's Way eventually they turned to their own way they fell into sin and already in the third chapter of the Bible God curses them he says you're from the ground into it you'll return from dust you are to dust your return and at the very end of chapter 3 God banishes Adam and Eve from his presence they get cut off from their home and they're sent away as exiled what I mean to say is this our home is with God we were made to be with God but we're all exiled we're all away from home we're all cut off and we're all subject to the process of death let me just say something about death it features in this passage of course if you're Ezekiel and you're walking in this valley and it's full of bones you see that this is a picture of what death and just so you know this passage I mean it's so relevant to us today just for a moment I want to talk about death probably as I do so there's people here you're gonna immediately become uncomfortable I think in our culture and society today we do everything there is to not think about these things I think we kind of try to just live on the surface and try to pretend that everything's normal when it's not everything's not okay and it's not normal and one of the reasons for that is that we are in the process of dying and if it doesn't dawn on you in a sort of regular way that you are on your way to death it should if it does one of the things that could happen and especially if you're without God in this world is you will become very despondent almost depressed wondering if there is any point or meaning to life at all there's a scholar his name was Leo Tolstoy and this is his picture good-looking chap you know in his own day he was known as a brilliant writer and thinker and in his life he almost attained a celebrity status it became very wealthy he was the who's who he was at all the parties he he was just living it up later on in his life he wrote a book called the confessions and in it he describes when he was about 15 years old it dawned on him I'm living life I'm party and everything's great but wait a second I got more years behind me that I have in front of me I'm gonna die and he talks about the abyss that his soul was plunged into when it finally dawned on him that he was going to die and I have a long quote here it's long because it's from Tolstoy this is what he said said the question brought me to the edge of the abyss when I was 50 years old and the question was this what will come of what I do today and tomorrow what will come of my entire life or express differently why should I live he goes on to say this my teens whatever they may be will be forgotten sooner or later and I myself will be no more like it I'm gonna die people might remember me for a little while but then outside of the random sermon in some church you know no one's gonna remember me why then do anything like and think about it how much effort toil anguish anxiety do we have about the concerns of this world I mean that's what we're all just we're in the process we're gonna die he says I therefore could not attach a rational meaning to a single act of my life the only thing that amazed me was how I failed to realize this from the very beginning how could anyone fail to see this that's what's amazing in other words I spent my entire life I just didn't even think about the fact that I was gonna die but when it finally dawned on me it amazed me that up until that point I hadn't spent a lot more time thinking about it and it really brought me to the edge of the abyss like if I'm gonna die why go on what's the purpose of all this he said it is possible to live as long as life intoxicates us but once we're sober we cannot help seeing it's all the delusion there's nothing funny or whinny about it all it is only cruel and stupid and maybe you want to say Oh depressed artist I mean we can laugh at him but can we refute as logic I mean the truth of the matter is and especially if this life has no God if we are eventually all just going to be worm food what is the point there is I don't know if you remember the epithelia series Cheers you remember that set in a Boston bar and for those of you don't remember I mean it was really the the show in its day the very last episode they're all sitting around the bar and Frasier Crane who's sort of known as the academic thinker you know he's sort of an oddball for this reason he says you know some people they think that life is a big accident and he said something like everything we do and all that we are they think it's just meaningless and after he got done saying that someone ant from the bar said now there's a cheery thought-- ha ha ha and they all took a drink and you know what Tolstoy is saying it's not funny you know here's what we do um we try as best as we can when confronted with death just make it seem like it's a normal part of life it's not a normal part of life but that's what we try I was recently in New York with my daughter Rachel we decided to go to the Lion King and I don't know how many of you seen this one Mufasa holds up Simba and you know it's his pride and joy and this is the future and there's this scene in which young Simba he he takes him aside the father to the son and he explains the circle of life to him he says listen we're all gonna die but it's ok you want to know why he says the antelope they eat grass and we we eat the antelope but eventually we're going to die too and we'll become fertilizer for the grass and the Antelope will eat us then and we'll all be a big part of the circle of life and you know it made for great theater and you walked away Wow okay great but what aren't you okay with the fact that all that's gonna become of you is you're gonna fertilize the grass so an antelope can you eat you the circle of life stuff is baloney death is an enemy and intruder it's not supposed to be that way when we see an old person or a young person dying it's the same it should not be part of life we all know it and I would say this that we as human beings were kind of caught between two realities on the one hand we know were made for greatness we're made in the image of God and God he breathed his breath into our nostrils we are made for greatness our lives are supposed to have meaning and purpose meaning and purpose that not even death is supposed to erase on the other hand since we're subject to death and were cut off from God I think all of us we sense a futility of it all there's a book that was written by a guy named Ernst Becker back in the 70s the title of the book is the denial of death and although this book it's not a Christian book by any means he had a great quote which I think nails it this is what he said he said man is literally split in two he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness and that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty in other words I'm not supposed to be worm food I'm not just a part of the circle of life he got that and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever it's a terrifying dilemma to have and to live with I mean and I think we're caught between these two realities we know we're made for greatness we know we're made for God we know were made for some grander purpose and yet we're exiled we're foreigners were strangers in this world and we're dying and it seems like life in light of that has no meaning and no purpose and we're all clawing and scraping that something we do someone we touch has some lasting reality that's a story the by Maya I don't know on you but I think it impacts us all and now listen here's what this passage says God's Word and his spirit can bring life where there's death can bring blessing where there's curses can bring of light where there's Darkness can bring hope just when you think there is no hope and the language is so much bigger than just the exile from Jerusalem and Babylon I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them God says I'll bring you back to the land then you my people will know I'm the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them I'll put my spirit in you and you'll live and I'll settle you in your own land God promises that in the in light of deaths realities he's gonna do something awesome and beautiful will no longer be cut off will be made alive because God is gonna breathe his spirit on us and let me tell you something I mean this passage is so awesome I mean when you finally understand the sweep of the whole Bible that not only did God bring his people back into the land and settle them back in the promised land but then from one of the descendants of those people who came back he actually entered our reality he lived a perfect life among us why so that deaths curse could be put on him and by his death the death of Jesus death could be defeated once for all and we could be made alive this is this is the heart of Scripture Jesus Christ that our sins are shamed the things that cut us off from God were put on Jesus and he was punished in our place and and Jesus died taking the curse that we deserve so that he hears what Christians believe where the rest of the world believes that death is an exterminator Christians believe that the death has become a gardener that that what is the worth death can do to us if you belong to God now what is the worst it can do you know what the worst it can do is it translates you from this world to the next this is what Christians believe death has become our you want to know why because Jesus died in a place and has reconciled us and brought us back to God we're no longer cut off we have a relationship with him the worst death can do is no longer exterminate us but just bring us closer to God death is an exterminator it's become our gardener and I mean this is so awesome there's a place in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul he actually I don't know any other better way than saying it like this he taunts death in first Corinthians chapter 15 Paul actually says where O death is your sting where O death is your victory do you realize if you're a Christian that you're basically saying Nana Nana boo boo to death everyone else fears it it causes them to get to the edge of the abyss to depression to meaninglessness but we're like haha deaf who are you what's up bring me your best all you'll do is bring me straight to God's throne I mean by God's Word and by his Spirit God brings life from death hope from hopelessness blessings from curses light into darkness and dumb I mean you just got to believe and put your faith that what God did through Jesus Christ death defeated death and has reunited us with him

Channel: Sunlight Church

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Length: 38min 57sec (2337 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 29 2014