Can these bones live?

Sermon Notes from Sunday 15 March 2015

Ezekiel 37 verses 1 – 15

This is the nation of Israel that we read of in this chapter.  We can also take this chapter as a picture of the church of Jesus Christ.  Here we see a nation that has been trampled over, misplaced and a young man Ezekiel who was a prophet of God.  He has been separated, taken out into this valley full of dry bones which have been scattered as far as the eye can see.  He sees nothing but bones lying on the ground.  He must have been a tremendously humble young man.  The Lord said to Ezekiel “can these bones live.” And he replied “Lord thou knowest.” The God of heaven knows all about us.  He was a humble, obedient young man.  The Lord tells Ezekiel to preach or prophesy to these bones and that is what he did.  Can you imagine him standing there preaching?  I am thinking of a word that cropped up in the prayer meeting, that has been repeated time and time again.  It crept up again last Sunday in the context of those men who purchased this site some 28 years ago.  They saw beyond a field, beyond a place where they looked.  They saw a place of worship, where people could come together to worship in the beauty of holiness, where souls could be reached, where people could bring their families to hear the word of God, to be taught in the things of God.  The one word was vision.  Ezekiel is a very important portion of scripture.  As Ezekiel looked on that valley he saw something in his heart no-one else could see.  28 years ago men stood on the roadside out there and saw something no-one else could see.  They had a vision.  The challenge is not for 28 years ago.  The challenge is for you and I this morning.  Proverbs 29 verse 18 “without a vision the people perish”

The man of vision and power.  You see the opening phrase of this chapter is very important – “THE HAND of the Lord was upon me.”  Those first 2 words are very important because of the situation Ezekiel found himself in and the work God was setting up for him to do.  It speaks of identity, power and authority.  The man of God needs to have that special stamp upon him today, he needs the power of God.  We need the power of God working with us and through us.  Ezekiel was a man of God stamped with the authority of God.  When the Children of Israel were going through the wilderness they were on their way, travelling to the promised land.  We have been redeemed out of the world.  We are on our way to heaven.  When the spies came into Jericho on that particular day they went into Rahab’s house.  Her house was a hostelry, people would frequent it and Rahab heard what they talked about.  She had heard about the children of Israel walking through the wilderness.  She had heard so much about them, how the enemy had fallen before them.  Then she said “our hearts did melt.”  The people of God had a particular stamp on them.  They were redeemed out of Egypt with the mighty hand of God.  In Deuteronomy 6 Moses was giving instructions to the children of Israel.  He said it was important to teach your children, to hand down the gospel to the next generation.  Are we happy enough to sit back?  “Then shall ye say to thy son we were Pharaoh’s bondsmen in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”  God redeemed them and brought them out of Egypt.  Duncan Campbell was preaching in the Hebrides.  He had been invited to a village that was so hard against the gospel.  There was a lad of 15 in the prayer meeting and Duncan invited him to pray.  The lad stood up and said one word “Father”, the moment he said that something happened in that meeting.  The hardness broke, men and woman began to get saved.  The lad had identified with the hand of God on him.

We see also the presence of God.  In verse 1 “and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord.”  Not only did he know the power of God but he was filled with the presence of God.  A man needs to be filled with the Spirit of God.  Paul told the Ephesian believers “do not be drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the spirit.”  The disciples were to “go into all the world and preach the gospel” but they needed to wait first for the power of God to fall on them.  Ezekiel was going out and he needed to be filled with the spirit of God.  In Acts 6 there were men needed for the furtherance of the work.  The old devil tried everything, persecution, violence, threats then he tried to sow a lie, the seed of discontentment.  Acts 6 verse 3 the advice given “wherefore brethren look ye among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business.” This situation required men filled with the Holy Ghost and they belonged to the church, people who had taken time to wait on God for the infilling and power of God.  We often quote about 1859 Revival of 4 men who went to pray in the school house at Kells.  Those people around the Ballymena area recognised something was different about the men than any other man.  They were filled with the Holy Spirit.  Ezekiel was a man of vision and he had the presence of God in his life.

Notice the man here and his placing.  He “set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.”  That is what God would have this man to be.  The man of God must be in the place where God can use him.  Not talking about physical place but a spiritual place.  Where are we spiritually?  Going on with God?  Do the things of God mean more to us than anything else or have they dropped in our priority?  Verse 2 “They caused me to pass by them.”  He had to have eyes to see them.  He looked around him.  Nothing could be seen but these dry bones.  The situation was dry matter.  Verse 3 not only had to look but he had to listen.  28 years ago when men looked at this field, the place where God would direct their eyes I’m sure they thought this is not a bad spot.  They had to get before God though and began to pray, make sure they were correct in their belief.  They had to be listening to the God of heaven who told them this is it.  In Acts 16 Paul was “forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia”.  He went on to Mysia and wanted to go into Bithynia and again “the spirit suffered them not”.  Paul then had the vision in the night time telling him where to go.  We have to be watching and listening for every opportunity if we want to lead the church forward.

The man of vision and his problem.  Ezekiel must have thought that there must somehow have been a battle here and this was the aftermath.  Ezekiel’s reply to God was “Lord thou knowest”.  28 years ago many problems faced the people who bought our piece of land.  Probably their biggest problem was finance.  What would they do about planning permission?  What would they do about support for the work?  “Thou knowest God all about it” when we look around us and see all the homes around the church and the problem of reaching them.  Remember when the disciples looked on the people who needed fed one day and saw thousands Philip asked “whence shall we buy bread that these may eat.”  Whenever we see these families we can only say “Lord thou knowest.”

The man of God and his proclaiming.  It sounded ridiculous to preach to dead bones but that was all he was asked to do.  That is all we are asked to do.  To take the gospel out and tell men and woman of the one who can lift them up, deliver them from shame, the one on came into the world to give them lie.  Ezekiel didn’t have any discussion with the Lord.  People around us are dead in sin and trespasses, there is a tremendous opportunity for us to reach them. That is the mission we need to reach them with the gospel.  We can make many excuses but we need to get our hearts to where God wants them to be.  They are going out into a Christless hell.  The man in Luke 16 carries to this very day.  He only wanted someone to dip their finger in cold water and place it on his tongue just to quench his thirst.  Is this where you want your family to be today, where you want your neighbours to be today?

The man of vision and prayer.  In verse 9 Ezekiel is still praying to the winds.  “Where there is no vision the people perish.”  Where there is no prayer the people perish.  We need to be people of prayer today.  We need to shake the apathy, idleness and get back to the place of prayer.  “Lord breath into these bones.”  God came and he can come again to save our family and friends today.

The man of vision and the promise – verse 14.  You pray and leave the rest with me.  Will we pick up the vision in the days ahead?  Will we pass it on to the church of tomorrow?

A faith that is personal and practical

Sermon notes from Sunday 29 March 2015

Daniel 6 verses 16 – 28

“because he believed in his God”

Handling Disappointments

Daniel believed in his God.  Many will have to cope with disappointments in life.  It doesn’t always go the way we want it to go.  Here’s a young man who had to face disappointments.  The lesson he learned could be applied to our lives.  We can trust in the loving God.  Daniel believed in his God.  This young man dealt with disappointments in his life.  He believed in his God and trusted in him.  We can have disappointments in our circumstances and in the people around us but not in the God we believe in.  David in 1 Samuel 29 was not allowed to go up with the Philistines and was told to go home.  They couldn’t trust him to be one of their number and were sending him home.  When David came back to Ziklag he found the enemy had come in, burned down all the homes and taken all the women captive.  The men with David were about to slay him, they ridiculed and criticized him but “David encouraged himself in the Lord.”  There comes a time in our lives when everything else fails and lets us down.  The only one we can turn to is the God of heaven.  Look at the example set before us of this young man Daniel – “because he believed in his God.”  Let’s put his faith under the microscope and not think of it as something that happened centuries ago.  If you have problems and circumstances that are getting you down at this moment in time look to the God of Daniel.  He is the same God today as the God of Daniel.  We often tell the children about faith – Forsaking All I Trust Him. 

A faith that is personal.  The word “he” is personal to Daniel himself, “believed” means he put his activity into it, “in” not on something or someone but God who is able to do far more exceedingly abundantly than he could ever ask or think.  Is your faith personal?  Have you placed your faith in the God of heaven today?  Not on someone else’s life.  Not on your father, mother or friend but on God himself.  No matter what happened this was Daniel’s motto.  As the stone was rolled away in front of the den imagine what must he have been thinking?  Here is a man who has prospered and is high up in the government but whose career is abruptly ended through deception and lies.  Can you imagine what it was like to come down to this level?  God hadn’t forsaken him.  He was right there in that situation.  Can you imagine as he went down into that den, into the place where the lions were kept all the thoughts and imaginations of his heart and head at that moment in time?  Psalm 23 “the Lord is my shepherd.”  You and I need to come to the cross ourselves, trust him for ourselves.  The result of not doing that will be that you will leave this life without Christ, reject him with your will and power and one day he will turn his back on you and cast you into hell.  If God was to turn his back on you what a tragedy that would be.  Daniel was a man of faith.  In chapter 1 he went through a harrowing experience in his young life.  He was taken from his family, from his country, set down in Babylon at the King’s table to eat and drink of the food set before him.  The King wanted a certain number of young people who could be trained in the Chaldean tongue and become great teachers.  He was set down at the King’s table and given the best food and drink offered.  Isn’t that what the devil is still doing today?  The devil takes our young people today out into his world, sets before them his food and drink and wants to make them his ambassadors.  It is however only for a season.  Daniel was brought to the king’s table and he turned to the eunich “Sir I cannot eat of this table.  In so doing I would defile myself, I would be rejecting the God of heaven.”  Daniel had a tremendous faith even as a young man.  That is why we have Sunday School, why we reach out to young people, to tell them of Christ and his love.  Daniel could not step out beyond his conscience.  In Daniel 2 when the King had a great dream he ordered the death of his wise men unless they could interpret the dream of coming empires.  Daniel is brought before the King of Babylon and pleads with the King for time that he might go into the presence of God and seek his face – verse 16.  My good works will never satisfy God and he knew that.  That is why he sent his son to save you from your sin and make you ready for heaven and home.

A faith that is practical.  There is one thing missing from this account.  It is the basic human instinct.  There is no fear in Daniel.  He just believed in his God.  He was flanked on either side by guards and marched to the den.  He is thrown into that den.  We don’t read one cry from Daniel.  He accepted and submitted himself to the God of heaven.  Daniel rested his soul, his life, his future to the hands of God.  Is that the faith we have?  “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe and tremble” (James 2 verse 19) What do we gauge our faith by?  Are we trusting in the God of heaven?  Have we a practical faith today?  Look at Daniel’s 3 friends when a great image was raised up.  They had to bow down when the music was played.  The 3 friends didn’t bow down and were threatened with all sorts.  The King gave them another opportunity to bow down.  The answer from the 3 men was “If it e so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” (Daniel chapter 3 verses 17 and 18)  They were putting their all in the hands of God.  “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”  What have I to fear?  I am leaning on the everlasting arms.  Have we a faith that is practical? 

Daniel had his faith secured in the very presence of God.  Down in the den he had a visitor from the very throne room of God himself, in the very depths of disappointment.  It must have been the most beautiful place to be in.  Imagine the various palaces around the province Daniel lived in, he would have been in them all, sat with kings and queens.  Try to think of Daniel here in this moment of time.  Must have been the most beautiful place to be in with the lions because he had a visitor at his side.  What a tremendous place to be in.  In the depths of despair we have a tremendous visitor – one who draws close to us.  God was there in the midst of it all.  “Where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst.”  What a wonderful thought.  Elijah on Mount Carmel defied the prophets of Baal and then slipped in before the most wickedest king in Israel to bring God’s word against him.  In chapter 19 where is he?  He feared for his life and runs from the presence of God.  God didn’t desert him but sent him an angel to meet him at the point of his need.  He was lying under a juniper tree and the angel set before him food and drink to refresh his body.  The Lord will be with us in all sorts of trials and tests.  We may never be in the lions den but in a situation we do not know which way to turn in.

A faith than sees the power of God.  Daniel was a man of prayer.  He prayed 3 times a day, perhaps more.  The people all around him, his princes didn’t like the fact he prayed and Daniel knew that.  They conspired and made a law to forbid him from praying.  Even though he knew the law he got before the God of heaven and prayed.  Nothing hindered him in his prayer. He was thrown into the lions den and the lions lay down at his feet – why – because God was there.  Is our faith personal, practical?  Does it bring the presence of God?  Does it see the power of God?  Remember Jairus who came running to Jesus asking for help for his daughter.  When Jesus and Jairus arrived at his house they heard the news that his daughter had died.  Jesus turned to Jairus and told him to believe.  Jairus stepped into the house and saw the Lord go to his daughter, lift her up and tell everyone to bring her something to eat and drink.  When was the last time I saw the power of my faith in action?  In Jesus’ home city he could do not mighty works there because of the people’s unbelief (Matthew 13 verse 58).  Daniel believed in his God.

A faith that delivers praise to God.  When the King brought Daniel out of that den there was not a scratch on him.  He lifted his voice to God and praised God.  The King made a decree that the only one to be worshipped was Daniel’s God.  How is my faith?  Is it personal?  Is it practical?  Does it secure the presence of God?  Do I see the power of God in action and does my faith bring the praise of others?