A Word in Season: Preaching to the Bones (Ezekiel 37:4)

Media Gratiae

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

The evangelist knocks on the door of a house and it creaks slowly open and a skeleton falls out

00:07

What is he to do? The preacher stands up in the pulpit and looks out at the congregation only to find dry bones on every seat skeletons slumped there utterly dead

00:21

The preacher goes out onto the street to make known Jesus Christ as crucified and he sees nothing

00:28

But dead bodies lying around him. How ought he to respond? if under those circumstances

00:35

That preacher and teacher began to make known the word of Jesus Christ and to exhort these skeletons to live

00:43

To stand to serve then you would think he was absolutely insane And yet there is something in that very much like what a true preacher

00:53

Must do when he brings the good news of god to sinners dead in their sins It's like what happened to ezekiel in chapter 37 of that prophet's history when the hand of the lord came upon him and brought him out in the spirit of the lord to a valley that was full of bones and the

01:11

Historian there the prophet emphasizes that these bones were very dry They were well and truly and long time dead and the question is raised

01:22

Can these bones live? And the prophet shocked and humbled simply says oh lord.

01:28

God, you know And the lord god gives ezekiel a task

01:35

Prophesy to these bones and say to them. Oh dry bones hear the word of the lord

01:41

Thus says the lord god to these bones. Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live

01:48

I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live

01:55

Then you shall know that I am the lord And so ezekiel begins to speak and there's a great noise a rattling and the bones come together

02:04

And the bones are clothed with sinews and flesh and skin but still no breath

02:11

So the prophet speaks again Prophesy to the breath says the lord prophesy son of man and say to the breath

02:18

Thus says the lord god come from the four winds Oh breath and breathe on these slain that they may live and so he speaks as commanded

02:27

And breath comes into them and they live and they stand upon their feet an exceedingly great army and god himself

02:35

Makes explicit that this is a picture of what's happening in the house of israel in ezekiel's day

02:43

There's no hope there's no prospect of life and yet the word of god is coming to the people

02:50

And there's the parallel When the preacher today looks out he may see nothing but dry bones before him

02:58

When we go out and take the gospel onto the streets of our homes and our towns and our villages

03:03

We're we're preaching to those who are dead in their trespasses and sins and we might say it's a pointless task

03:11

How can I say to the dead live? And it is by the same virtue that ezekiel spoke

03:19

We are commanded by god to bring his good news to those who are dead in their trespasses and sins

03:27

And we do so in dependence upon the spirit of god who is able to bring life from death

03:34

We preach a crucified christ he who died but rose again for our justification

03:41

And the same power that was at work in him is at work in those whom god raises from the dead

03:48

The holy spirit brings life from death so that those who are dead in their trespasses and sins

03:56

Under the word of god and by his power are made alive together with jesus christ

04:03

And so the preacher's task is not a hopeless one He may sometimes feel it is difficult

04:10

But he needs that faith that conviction that certainty that the message he brings is god's word of life

04:18

And that if he preaches that word in dependence upon the holy spirit then god by his great power

04:26

Is able to bring those who are dead to life in christ and to make them an army

04:33

To serve their god and their king Now is this not the energy is this not the life?

04:39

Is this not the the blessing the the heavenly miracle that we desire when we preach?

04:45

That though we go as to dry bones though we go as to dead men and women that nevertheless

04:52

Because of the god who sends us because of the christ that we preach and because of the spirit upon whose power we depend