Ezekiel 37:9-10 - Breath Came and They Lived.

Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones as he was commanded and the dry bones rattled together. God laid sinews on them, flesh came upon them, and skin covered them, and then came the Spirit.

[Ezekiel 37:9-10] "Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army," (ESV).

Before, Ezekiel was told to prophesy or speak forth God’s word to the dry bones, but in v. 9 God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, i.e., to the Holy Spirit of God.

The same Hebrew word is translated in this passage as wind, breath, or Spirit, depending on the context. In keeping with the imagery of the dead being brought back to life, the word used in vv. 9-10 is breath, but it’s clear from the whole passage that what is being referred to is the Holy Spirit of God. As God says in v. 14, “I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live...”

The question is, why would God command Ezekiel to prophesy to the Spirit of God?

The answer is that God is commanding Ezekiel to pray, and his prayer was, “Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”

The Spirit of God works through the Word of God to reveal Christ, so we must pray and ask God to do his work through his Word!

But specifically Ezekiel was commanded to speak forth the word of God to the Spirit, which is to say that he was to remind God of his Word in prayer.

Why do we need to remind God of his word in prayer? Does God forget what he said so that he needs us to remind him?

Of course not. If you read through the Bible, you’ll see that it sometimes (Gen. 8:1; Exod. 2:24; Ps. 98:3; Num. 10:9; Acts 10:31; Rev. 16:19, etc.) says, “God remembered...”

In Genesis 8:1, “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.” In Exodus 2:24 God heard the groaning of his people trapped in slavery, and he “remembered his covenant” with them.God didn’t forget Noah and the ark. He didn’t forget his people trapped in slavery. No, when the Bible says that God remembered, it means that God is about to act or was already acting for the good of his people.

So in Genesis 8:1, “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.” In Exodus 2:24 God heard the cries of his enslaved people, remembered his covenant, and called Moses to led his people out of Egypt (cf. Exod. 3).

We remind God of his word in prayer, not because he has forgotten, but because we are calling on him to act according to his Word, which he loves to do! We are calling on him to do what only he can do - to bring the dead back to life through faith in Christ!

The Holy Spirit’s joy is to shine the light on Christ. And it should be our joy to call the Holy Spirit to do just that by speaking forth the Word of God to the Spirit.

For example, we could remind the Spirit of John 6:63: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."

So if we reminded the Spirit of that verse, it might sound like this: O Spirit who gives life, remind me and make plain to every lost sinner that the flesh is no help at all in salvation. We cannot earn salvation with good works done in the flesh. We cannot inherit salvation because we might come from a long line of faithful Christians. Only the words of Christ, the words of God, are spirit and life. O Spirit who gives life, confirm me in the life-giving word of God and reveal it to every soul still unsaved. It’s in the Name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

Or take Titus 3:5-6 as another example: "he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior..."

Father, you have saved us, not because we earned it by doing good, but because you are merciful. You have washed in the regenerating water of your word and you have renewed us by your life-giving Holy Spirit, whom you have poured out on us not sparingly but richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. Father, do that same saving work that only you can do in the hearts of anyone still unsaved here this morning. It’s in the Name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

We must pray like that using all of God’s Word to call on him to move in the hearts of the unsaved. If God’s Spirit doesn’t move in the hearts of the unsaved, they will not see how glorious a Savior Jesus is!

If God’s Spirit doesn’t move in the hearts of the unsaved, then they will not see just how desperate for Jesus they really are.

You see, sinful man before holy God is not just incapacitated. He is DEAD! And he is not just recently-dead; not even he-stinketh-like-Lazarus dead. He is dust-in-the-lungs dead! He is skin-and-flesh-and-sinews rotted away dead! He is bones-dried-and-bleached by the sun dead! He is absolutely-no-hope-of-life dead! That’s the what the Spirit showed Ezekiel in v. 2.

The Spirit took Ezekiel on a thorough tour of the price for sin, which is death. In v. 10, when these dry bones are raised to life, they are referred to as “an exceedingly great army.” The picture then of the dry bones in the valley is the picture of a great army slain and left to rot in the sun for so long that nothing remains but bleached bones. That’s how defeated; that’s how dead this army is.

But if the dry bones are God’s people as v. 11 says, then the exceedingly great army in v. 10 is God’s people, and that means the army slain and left to rot in v. 2 is God’s people. I know that’s obvious, but here’s why I bring it up...

Who defeated and left God’s people dead in that valley? Was it Assyria? Babylon?

Assyria and Babylon were just rods of discipline in the hand of God. God’s people in their sin against him had gone to war with God. It was God who demanded their life for their sin. And it was God who graciously provided resurrection from the dead.

You see, apart from the Spirit working through the Word of God, sinful man doesn’t even know he’s at war with God! He doesn’t know he’s dead in his sins and trespasses against God!

Apart from the Spirit working through the Word, sinful man doesn’t know that God has graciously provided resurrection from the dead through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

This is why we must pray and remind the Spirit of God’s Word, calling on God to act according to his Word in the hearts of our lost loved-ones!

We must take God’s Word to God and ask God act according to his Word in our community, in our own church, and in our own hearts!

Oh Brothers and Sisters, if we would see the lost saved, then we must speak forth God’s Word to the lost (i.e., we must preach!)! And if we would see the lost saved, then we must speak forth God’s Word to God (i.e., we must pray!)!

Ezekiel 37:4-6 - You Shall Live.

God calls those dead in sin to live before him through the word of God.

​This is the point of God's word to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37:4-6, which says, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord,” (ESV).

To prophesy is to speak forth the word of God. Here, Ezekiel was told to speak forth God’s word to dry bones, which seemed to make about as much sense as proclaiming the gospel in a graveyard, but God knew that his word gives life!

If Ezekiel would preach, then God would raise the dead. And Ezekiel obeyed.

Ezekiel says in Ezekiel 37:7, “So I prophesied as I was commanded.” And God was, of course, faithful to his word - the dry bones began to come together!

Preaching, proclaiming, or speaking forth the word of God concerning Jesus seems like foolishness to most people today. Paul said that had been and always would be the case. In 1 Corinthians 1:18, he wrote, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing...”

Paul also said that the day was coming when people would “not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they (would) accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and (would) turn away from listening to the truth,” (2 Tim. 4:3-4). Can any of us doubt that that day has arrived?

So much of what passes for preaching today is actually false teaching! Many of those who are not false teachers are light-weight preachers with practical tips for your family or your career, but there’s no Christ in their sermons! And if there is no Christ in their sermons, then the word of God has not been preached and the dead won’t be raised!

Men are DEAD in their sins before God and only the word of God by the Spirit of God will give them life!

We as individual Christians and as a body of believers must be absolutely committed to the proclamation of God’s word because God’s word gives life!

Paul wrote in Romans 10:17, “…faith comes from hearing, and hearing through word of Christ.” How is that those dead in sin are brought to new life through faith in Christ? It is through the speaking forth, the preaching, the proclaiming of the word of Christ!

As men hear the gospel, they are convicted of all their blasphemy, all their idolatry, all their irreverence and distrust toward God. They are convicted of their disregard for authority, of their sinful anger, of their lusts, their greed and covetousness and dishonesty!

As they hear the word of Christ, they are brought to understand that everyone of those sins on its own is deserving of eternal death in hell. As they hear the gospel, men feel the danger of God’s wrath bearing down on them and cling to the only salvation that God offers.

In Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected, God has made the way of salvation available to all those who would call on the Name of Jesus for salvation!The good news is that you can be forgiven! God’s wrath can pass over you! You can be brought from death to life through faith in Christ Jesus if you will repent of you sins and give your life to Jesus!

Will you repent today of your disbelief and distrust and disrespect toward God?

Will you call on Jesus to save you?

Christian, will we obey Jesus? Will we be obedient to prophesy like Ezekiel, to speak forth God’s word as he commands?

In Romans 10:14, God asks us, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”

Will you preach, Christian? Will you speak forth the word of God so that those dead in sin will be born again through faith in Christ? Will you demand that I and every preacher who steps into a pulpit faithfully proclaim the word of God because you know that only God’s word gives life?

Luke 2:41-52 - The Boy Jesus

There were things Mary didn’t understand about her Son, but she treasured those things, those mysterious things up in heart nonetheless.

We see that in Luke 2:51, but we also see it in Luke 2:19 when the shepherds came to behold Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger.

The shepherds said incredible things about Jesus, things Mary didn’t understand, things that made Mary marvel just as she and Joseph marveled when Simeon spoke his incredible words about Jesus when he was presented in the Temple (Luke 2:33).

It seems that throughout Jesus’ childhood Mary was asking about Jesus the question that people asked about John the Baptist as a child, “What then will this child be?”

Some think that Luke includes these comments about Mary treasuring these things in her heart, because Mary was one of the sources for his account of Jesus’ time on earth. If that’s true, then we can imagine Mary sitting with Luke and saying, “At the time I didn’t know what it all really meant? I mean, the angel… I was so young! The shepherds… I had just had my first baby in a stable! Simeon and Anna in the Temple… It was wonderful, but I didn’t grasp it all fully! In Jerusalem, when he was 12, when we lost him for a couple days, and found him in the Temple amazing everyone… well, we were learning and understanding who he was and what it all meant bit by bit.”

God is perfectly clear, but we are all dull apart from the Holy Spirit revealing to us who Jesus is in his fullness. But perhaps Mary sitting with Luke, filled with the Holy Spirit, thought back to this episode when Jesus was 12 and could then see clear indications of who he would become, who he was, and who he knew himself to be even at this early age.

What is this passage revealing to us about Jesus? Who is this passage indicating that Jesus is? Who is it indicating that we embrace when it calls us to embrace Jesus?

Luke 2:41-52 reveals Jesus as more than just a precocious child. It reveals a further glimpse into Jesus’ true identity as the Christ, the Promised Savior of God’s people, and it begins to indicate just what sort of Messiah Jesus would be.

If we are to embrace Jesus, we must embrace him as he is. We must embrace him in his fullness even if we don’t yet understand him fully. That’s what it meant for Mary to treasure up all these things in her heart concerning her Son.

Our relationship with Jesus is a bit like a marriage in that way. When two people get married, they think they know each other and to some extent they do in that moment. They embrace one another in that moment, but they can’t know each other fully because they haven’t lived with one another for 10 years, 20 years, 30, 40, 50, or 60 years.

The longer we’re married to someone the more we get to know them; the more fully we understand them. That’s our relationship with Jesus.

The Apostle Paul mentions this, saying, “…now we see in a mirror dimly, but (one day) face to face. Now I know in part; (but one day) I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known,” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

We embrace Jesus in his fullness even if we don’t yet understand him fully.

That’s what Luke 2:41-52 is calling us to do.