The Lord Restores by His Word

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The Lord Restores by His Word

Saturday, March 5, 2022

KBA Semi-Annual Meeting

Introduction

-Our KBA theme for this year is the theme of restoration. And really that is the theme of the entirety of the Bible. Genesis 1 and 2 are about God creating the heavens and the earth. And it was all good. It was complete, so much so that on the 7th day, God rested from his work, from its completion. And then of course in Genesis 3, the fall happens. Man rebels against God. And a curse is given on man, woman, the serpent, and the earth. For sin has now entered the world leaving it stained and broken. Yet, starting in Genesis 3:15 and throughout the rest of the Bible, it is about God pursuing a sinful and broken people who rejected Him with the very purpose of working out the only means of restoring them to himself.

-The Bible is not a book full of characters and stories, it is a book about the one man, Jesus Christ who came into the world in order to save sinners, that is to reconcile us, to restore us back to the Father who is holy. And over and over again we see this theme of restoration. We see it when Abraham sins and lies about his wife Sarai being his sister. The LORD restores her to him, keeping her from sexual immorality. We see Jacob have what he was cheated by Lot restored to him. We see the people of Israel restored to freedom in their Exodus from Egypt. Over and over again, Israel sins, God punishes, the LORD restores by his grace the people.

-This is crucial for us to see as pastors and church members, especially when many of our churches are struggling to survive. It is important for us to remember that we worship a God who has pursued after us to rescue us from our own sin and restore us to himself. Hope is to be given in this.

Context:We see this theme of God restoring a people back to himself in our text this morning. Israel is in the midst of exile, the nation has become a laughing stock to the nations. And yet, God for the sake of his own name is about to restore Israel to himself. God promises to give the people a new heart of flesh and to put His Spirit within them. But there is much doubt among the people, and so, that brings us to out text this morning, Ezekiel 37:1-14. Please take out your copy of God’s word or get close to a neighbor and look on with them, as we read this text together. READ EZEKIEL 37:1-14

-How will the LORD restore a stubborn people to himself? How will he give them this new heart and put his Spirit within a dead people? By prophecy and by the giving of his Spirit. And this I think is the Main Idea here in Ezekiel 37:1-14 and our message this morning: God alone brings restoration through the work of His Word and Spirit.

Points

The God who restores

The means of restoration

The hope of restoration

1. The God who restores

-The Valley of Dry Bones vision is the most familiar section of text in the book of Ezekiel. But as we consider this section this morning, we must not lose sight of the one who is acting, the one who is going to do the restoring of the people, the one who is going to give the new heart and breathe His Spirit into the people. It is God alone who does this great and mighty work.

-As the vision of the valley of dry bones begins, Ezekiel is taken out to the midst of a valley in the Spirit of the Lord. He is put down in the middle of the valley, and it is full of bones. In fact, verse 3 adds there were very many bones, elevating the importance that it was a great pluthrea, a large quantity. Verse 10 helps further emphasizing this by saying that the number of bones raised was that of an exceedingly great army. It is kind of like the elephant graveyard in Disney’s The Lion King. It is full of nothing but bones.

-So, here Ezekiel is in the middle of this valley with all these bones, and it further adds that they were very dry, showing that the bones have long been dead. The flesh and the sinews (the muscle tendons) are no longer there. It is emphasizing, much like John does in John 11 when making clear that Lazarus had been dead for 4 days. The point being that the bones are truly dead, no life is left in them, no skin, no tendons. No nothing. They are bare, dry, and lifeless bones. And yet, the Lord asks his servant Ezekiel here, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

-The expected answer is no. No, these dead bones can’t be raised. They are long dead! It is hopeless. This is certainly the feeling of the people of Israel. For they are recorded down in verse 11 saying, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are indeed cut off.” Brother pastors, church members present, how many of us look at our struggling churches and our churches in the midst of church revitalization and have this same feeling? We look at the challenges, the shrinking numbers, the lack of baptisms, the lack of growing disciples and feel as if the task before us is utterly hopeless? That there is no way our churches can live and thrive again?

-Brothers and sisters, the Valley of Dry Bones is a passage that should bring us hope, for like Ezekiel, we should be saying, Lord you know! For regardless of how dead and done we may feel our churches are, the Lord is capable of reviving each and everyone of them if he so desires. And yet, I wonder how many, myself included, get so impatient and doubtful of what God is capable of doing? Or worse, we think he needs our help to make revitalization happen.

-If the task was left to Ezekiel or the people of Israel to raise the dry bones to life, the task would have been carried out in vanity. It would have been useless to have tried. But it is not their task to carry out, nor is it our task to carry out the work of breathing new life into our churches. We are instruments, but we are not the means. For it is God alone who restores, it is God alone who is able to bring these dry and dead bones to life again. And it is God alone who is capable of restoring our churches and breathing new life into them again.

-If we are looking at ourselves, then we are like those who try and swim against the current, wearing themselves out and will not complete the task. But, if we look to the LORD, we can find strength and encouragement, for he indeed will bring restoration through his given, ordinary means. And this is where we turn in our next point to consider these rather ordinary means.

2. The means of restoration

-The first of two means that the Lord uses to bring restoration to these dead, dry bones is the means of his word. Following Ezekiel’s response of, “O Lord God, you know.” The Lord calls there in verse 4 that Ezekiel prophesy over these bones, saying to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. And that word is given there in verses 5 and 6. God’s extraordinary work is done through ordinary means. How often do we quote that of Hebrews 4:12 which says, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”? And yet likewise, how many times do we rob God’s word of his power by putting our energies and efforts everywhere but that word? The power of God’s word is shown here in the Valley of Dry bones.

-Ezekiel is given the word of the LORD and called to prophesy, and he goes and prophecies. And notice what the results are, there is a sound, a rattling, the bones came together, bone to its bone. As Ezekiel prophesies, that is, declares the given word of God, these once dry bones begin to come together again. There in verse 8, sinews and flesh begin to form on these bones again.

-God’s word is powerful, and it is through the proclamation and the preaching of this powerful word that will bring restoration. In our churches, what has been the view and emphasis of the preaching of the word? If preaching has not been the center of the gathering, it is no wonder the church has struggled or is struggling. Music, buildings, traditions, programs cannot be what drives the church, it must be the regular, faithful preaching of the word of God. For it is through the preaching of the word that will fuel the mission of God. It is through the preaching of the word that the people of God will be equipped to do the work of ministry. It is the preaching of the word that will be the primary means of discipleship within the church.

-It has always been God’s word that was to go out and be declared to the people to shape the people. And the Apostle Paul knew that, which is why he encourages Timothy in his own work of Church struggles to preach the word in 2 Timothy 4:2-5 which says: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

-When it says out of season, what do we think the moments of Church Revitalization are? Is not Church Revitalization in the midst of these out of season moments? Those moments that the church is struggling to produce fruit, the moments when she is struggling to survive, when she is struggling to endure? It is especially in these moments when God’s word must be the center of our focus and energy to breathe new life into the church again. We must not put our trust and energy in pragmatism or gimmicks, that is the latest fad out there. We must preach the word.

-Now, I do want to make an appeal here towards what I mean by a right preaching of the word. And I have a feeling I’m going to step on some toes here. But I ask that you follow me here carefully. Brother Pastors, if your people are not getting a regular diet of expository preaching, then you are leaving them famished and not allowing the word to do its full work. As one dear brother put regarding a different topic, but the same applies, cotton candy tastes great, but it doesn’t nourish you. Topical preaching can have its place, but expository preaching should be our norm. For expository preaching is taking the main point of the text and making it the main point of the sermon. Charles Spurgeon preached random texts, but he was expository by nature. Preaching through books of the Bible is a good way to do expository preaching, but not a guarantee. For expository preaching isn’t a running commentary, it is applying the word in the lives of its hearers along the lines of its main point.

-But there is a reason I bring this up. Many of our church members are Biblically illiterate. And while for some, that is because they refuse to open their Bibles, for many it is because we have failed to teach them how to read and study their Bibles. Pastors, if you are giving your church a diet of merely topical preaching, how do you think they are going to learn to read their Bibles? They are going to learn to read it topically. They are going to learn that they have to go searching for topics when it feels appropriate vs what they may actually need. The members of our churches are going to read their Bibles the way they see us handle ours through our preaching. So shouldn’t we give them a healthy diet of the Bible? Showing them how to read the Bible in context? To read different genres of the Bible differently? In other words, teaching them that we don’t read Poetry literature the same we do as Apocalyptic, nor do we read Narratives the same way we do Discourses? But how are they going to learn this from us when we don’t do it ourselves? We must do better! We must ensure our churches are fed with a healthy diet of the Word. And that diet is best given through Expository Preaching for it points us to the point of the word, and not that of

our own thoughts and ideas.

-God’s word is a powerful tool that is one of two means that God uses to bring the dead to life. The other means, his Spirit. At the end of verse 8 we read: But there was no breath in them, talking about the bones that were brought back together. And so, the LORD again calls on Ezekiel to prophesy, and this time calling on the breath, that is the Spirit, to come upon these slain. And once more as the word goes out, the Spirit comes upon these lifeless forms and brings life to them. Causing the great army to rise with life in them.

-And like we in our churches need to ensure that the word is proclaimed, we too need to be in prayer for the power of the Spirit to go forth and to do its works. How many of our churches are lacking much time to pray? Many of them forgo the prayer meetings or at worse what prayer meeting exists is a mere gossip hour or hour for one’s own prayer list rather than a time of thanksgiving for what God has done and intercession, pleading for the Spirit to move amongst our members and our neighbors. One regular prayer item on our prayer list each week is the regular preaching of the word. And it is a fixture, because our Sunday gatherings should be bathed in prayer, praying that the Spirit would show up and move in the hearts of those present, shaping them more to the image of Christ and reaching those who are not yet Christian.

-God restores his people through the word and the power of his Spirit. The two work hand in hand to bring life to the dead. This is why the apostles in Acts 6 called for others to serve the church so that they might not neglect the word and prayer. As we labor to serve our churches, may a great emphasis be given towards both the centrality of the preaching of the word and a great emphasis on prayer that the Spirit would be at work in the lives of the church’s members and those who have yet to believe.

-But what assurance do we have in this hope and these means? That is where I want us to turn in our third and final point this morning.

3. The hope of restoration

-The hope of restoration is found in verses 12-14. Let’s re-read these verses together (READ)...

-Let’s work this verse backwards, the Lord promises he will bring his people into the land of Israel. The estimated date of this vision is around 585 B.C. and around 535 B.C. the exiles return to Israel and begin rebuilding the temple as seen in Ezra 2. God is faithful to keep his promise. But not only is God faithful in restoring the nation back to the land he had given them, he is faithful to have opened their graves and raised them. This promise here is fulfilled in Christ and his resurrection. Here death is defeated, victory is won. And all who place their faith in Christ enter into victory with the Christus Victor, joining him in his inheritance as we enter into covenant union with him! God has raised his people from being spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1), made us alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:6), and he will bring us to the point of being glorified in Christ (Romans 8:30). He who began the good work in us will bring it to completion!

And while these are mostly considering our individual Christian lives, they also point to our churches.

-For what is the church? It is the bride of Christ. The church defined by Jonathan Leeman in Rediscover Church is “It’s a group of people who know they’ve been loved by Christ and have begun to love one another like that.” Therefore God cares just as much about the whole of the people as he does the individuals. For the church is an embassy of the Kingdom of God, it is an outpost used to advance the mission of God. Churches matter! And therefore God will be at work to restore his churches just as he did the people of Israel.

-Therefore, our churches matter to God. And the same way he is working in us individually, he is working corporately through our churches. And as churches are forced to humble themselves in realizing their need of revitalization and re-focus their eyes on the LORD alone, we begin to truly see that he is God and that he is capable of restoring these once struggling churches to be full of life. To see people growing as disciples of Jesus, seeing new people repent and believe in the gospel, and seeing people be sent out of the church into the world to proclaim the gospel.

Conclusion