Ezekiel 37

Ezekiel 37:1-10

THE VISION OF THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES Ezekiel 37:1-10AS we have often had occasion to remark, in the course of this “whole Bible study”, we are not attempting to produce another commentary; nor is our objective an expositor’s Bible. The title of this series declares its clear intent— “Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist”.There are times when we give ourselves largely to exposition, and there are other times when our definite objective is evangelism, and then there come occasions when we combine the two. This discourse is of the last sort.We hope by exposition of these ten verses to make evangelistic appeal.This day begins the two weeks of 1932 pre-Easter services in the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis; and, again, it is one of those striking illustrations of Biblical wealth that we find in this Book Ezekiel, in the study of which we are now engaged, just such Scriptural appeal as is adapted to the task in hand.From time immemorial great outstanding evangelists have employed this exact text in soul-winning services, and that with good occasion, for it is marvelously suggestive.We ask you then to think with us on—The Valley of Death, The Reviving Voice, The Divine Visitation. THE VALLEY OF DEATH“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones” (Ezekiel 37:1).These bones were the symbols of death! Of course the reader understands that this is a vision, not a verity. Ezekiel, the Prophet, was not literally carried into a valley where death had left men to rot before the face of the sun; but in the spirit, and in a figure, his vision or dream so situated him. Men do not see everything they see with natural eyes, nor hear everything they hear with natural ears. There is an eye of the soul and an ear of the spirit, and these contribute to the experiences of life equally, if not even more, than do the eyes and ears of the body.This text is to be interpreted in the light of what has preceded it.The nation of Israel is “dead in trespasses and sins”, but God has in mind its eventual redemption, marvelously symbolized by a resurrection; and it is that fact to which this vision refers; and yet, Israel herself, steeped in sin, is only another type of the souls of men, “dead in trespasses”.Just as it was difficult in that day to bring Israel to believe the sentence of death had been passed upon her, so it is difficult in our day to get those men and women and children who continue in trespasses and in sin to realize that spiritual death is their estate; and yet, Christ was not only clear, but extremely emphatic in His teaching on this subject.“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Again Jesus said,“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).Jesus said,“I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).It is very difficult for the man who is alive in body to consent that he is dead in spirit; and yet it is Scripturally asserted in every conceivable form that those who have not Christ are “dead in trespasses and in sins” (Colossians 2:13).But in the further study of the Scriptures I mark the additional fact—The dry bones suggest long-continued death.“Behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry” (Ezekiel 37:2).That is one of the hardest of all New Testament doctrines to accept, namely, that the multitudes are dead. There are certain passages of Scripture that my heart would feign change, because they contain statements that violate my interests and increase my grief. This is one of them—“Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). We sometimes forget that this vision relates to a people who professed Faith in God, and yet their spiritual condition was symbolized not only by the valley of death, but by multiplied “dry bones”.The Church of God holds a great many of the dead.Dr. Agar, the Baptist expert, who came out from New York to Minneapolis to address its Baptist ministers and laymen on last Lord’s Day, called attention to the usual condition of the churches of this country, saying that only about 30% of them give evidence of life by Christian activity and service.At the meeting of the Advisory Board this week it was brought out that only 50% of this church,— famed throughout the length and breadth of the land as a living and effective church,—are doing aught for the cause of Jesus Christ, so far, at least, as reports of their endeavors ever reach the pastor’s office. In other words, of the 3,400 names on the church roll there are 1,700 of them that give no account of themselves whatever.Moody once said, “It is a sad day when the professed convert goes into the church and that is the last you hear of him.”There are a great many people who have a notion that one’s name on the church roll is a sort of promise for one’s name on the Lamb’s Book of Life, but it was not so in Israel, and it is not so in Christianity.When, therefore, the company of dead inside the church is added to that greater company of dead outside the church, the figure of our text is fit,— “There were very many in the open valley; and, la, they were very dry”, or dead.In Belgium I looked on rows upon rows of markers and head-stones, each of them indicating the place where a dead man lay; but when I turned from this scene of physical cemeteries, back to the streets of Brussels, Paris, and London, I walked among the millions who were living in body, but dead in spirit!If the Belgian scene: was depressing, the metropolitan scene was far more so.Lost bodies bring sadness to those who know about it; but lost souls should excite a deeper sadness still and should stir the sympathies and move to service all them that are alive.This death condition was a challenge to faith.“And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live”? (Ezekiel 37:3). That same challenge comes to the saints of this century. When one studies the moral, ethical and religious conditions of the day, he is discouraged. Unsaved who are members of churches seldom visit the sanctuary. The unregenerate from the outside give to the House of God and to His Gospel a wider berth.The time used to be when the people of this country, at least, went to church; even the most sinful saw the sanctuary with a good degree of regularity. But that time is past. Skepticism, that heads up in our schools and finds voice also in many magazines and newspapers and even from so-called Christian pulpits, is producing this natural result. Reverence for holy things is passing. Regard for the Word of God is gone from the hearts of multitudes.

Convictions about immortality and the final judgment have slowly but certainly passed.Church-lessness, Christ-lessness, and crime are comfortable companions. The day has come when ir-religion is not a badge of dishonor; but rather the basis of boastfulness; and, to such an extent has skepticism and sin prevailed that even the saints are losing heart and hope, and we fear not a few of them, as they study the valley, are saying, “No!” to God’s question, “Can these bones live”?But, if so, it is a faithless answer, and becomes the criticism of Him who makes it.Ezekiel answered, “O Lord God, Thou knowest”! That was not the answer of faith; but neither was it the answer of infidelity. It still left certain the sentence of Holy Writ, “All things are possible with God”.These bones would seem to say, “Resurrection is impossible!” Their exceeding dryness would seem to indicate their eternal deadness; but who shall lay limitations upon God?How easy it is for us to do this thing, and how often we fall into that feature of infidelity!When Christ came to Bethany, Martha, who met Him, said, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”. But let it be remembered, to her eternal credit, that she added, “But I know, that even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee”.In other words, Martha believed that God could raise the dead.How many of us fall short at that point! We know some man whose sins are so black, or some woman whose spirit is so scornful, that we say, “Even God can do nothing for that man, or with that woman!” But more than once does He, by matchless Grace and Power, rebuke our unbelief.Canon Aitken, the Church of England missionary, tells the story of a certain man known as “Captain Jim” whose neighbors believed him to be beyond the reach of even Divine power.

At the hotel of the neighboring town, where a revival was beginning, one of these men said, “I say, Captain Jim, when I hear of your being converted, I shall begin to think there is something in religion.” The very incredulity of his neighbor concerning the possibility of his salvation convicted him of his need, and that very night he sought the meeting; on his knees in penitent form, he cried for mercy, and found God.Dr. Dawson tells us that when Stanley started to Africa in search of Livingstone he was the biggest atheist known to London, and the very notion that he would become a Christian was sufficiently absurd to start a laughter of his intimates; and yet, the life of Livingstone Reached Stanley’s heart and brought him to God.Yes, the dead bones can live; even the very driest of them can take on flesh and form, and, breathed upon by the Almighty God, can become His active servants, yea, His devoted saints.

THE VOICE“Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these hones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the, Word of the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:4). The Prophet was sent to speak to the dead. In that respect his experience was not even exceptional. When Carey went to India he spoke to the dead, and to the dead only. It was seven long years before there was a sign of spiritual life.When Morrison went to China he talked to the dead, to men and women “dead in trespasses and sins”!When Moody and Clark went to Africa they stood in the midst of the dead, and in the faces of those who assembled to give audience there was no sign of spiritual life. It was absolutely unpromising at the first, as with the dry bones of Ezekiel’s valley, and yet, the commission of Carey, the commission of Morrison, the commission of Moody and Clark was clear,—“Go, preach!”There are a great many men who think they have to have a pulpit before they can preach. They think they have to be called as pastor of a church before they can preach.

Why so? The dead are everywhere. The streets are full of them. The farms and the shops are lined with them; and wherever the dead are, there exists the prophet’s opportunity.When Chas. Darwin visited Tierra del Fuego in 1883, he found a people so low and so bestial in both character and conduct, that he considered them hopeless. He wrote home, “The Fuegians are in a more miserable state of barbarism than I ever expected to have seen any human being.” Later he said, “I certainly should have predicted that not all the missionaries in the world could have done what has been done.” In other words, he counted them beyond human reach, but later he confessed, “It shames me as I remember my prophecy of failure for the missionaries there. Their endeavors met with grand success.” He wrote to the London Missionary Society, “I shall feel proud if your committee shall think fit to elect me as honorary member of your society,” and to prove both his surprise and his appreciation of what the prophets of God had wrought among the most abased, he enclosed twenty-five pounds to be used for Gospel Missions.Again, the message for dead men was Divinely appointed.“Say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord!’ (Ezekiel 37:4).One day Jesus Christ reminded His auditors of this fact. He said,“The Words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).Upon that certainty every Divinely appointed spokesman rests.Paul wrote to the Romans,“I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).Even old Isaiah, that mighty evangelist of Old Testament times, penned his confidence after this manner,“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: “So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11). Paul, in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia, preached to the Israelites one Sabbath Day, and to them he said,“Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the Word of this salvation sent” (Acts 13:26). Once in a long while some man is found in heathen lands, searching vainly for God, under deep conviction over sin, but in spite of his search, failing to find the way. The reason is that he is without the Word. The Word is Life and Light. It is quick and powerful.By the perusal of its pages, by the preaching of its Truths, thousands and millions of men, women and children have been turned from darkness to light, quickened from death unto life. There is never a day passes but some text from this Holy Book takes hold of the heart of some unbeliever, and turns him to God. There are thousands of instances, such as the one of the wealthy woman who found her chambermaid reading the Bible, and reproving the poor, melancholy soul for finding pleasure in such a Book, she took it from her hands to lay it away.

As she went away the pages were open, and she saw one word.The next morning she went back to the maid, and said, “I want that Book. I want to read it myself. I saw one word only as I laid it aside, and that was the word ‘eternity.’ Will it tell me where I will spend it?”John Svenson was a young miller in Sweden, and he was a Christian. Andrew Peterson was his comrade and partner in the mill, and was an unbeliever. John, who had been converted by reading the Bible, always left the Book where he hoped his co-laborer might pick it up. Sure enough, Andrew, seeing it, said in his secret soul, ““I will fling that Book into the whirlpool.”He picked it up with that intent, when, lo, his eyes rested upon the words in Matthew 24:41, “Two shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left”.It was like a voice from another world, and he read the context.

He was brought under convection over sin and finally yielded his heart to Christ. God’s Word is His instrument of salvation. God’s breath is life itself.“As I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. “And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. “Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. “So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army” (Ezekiel 37:7-10). In both the Old and the New Testament the wind is the type of the Holy Spirit, through whom God breathes life into men.“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Originally when Adam was created he was but animal in body, but “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”. Death is the very breath of the adversary. Life is the breath of God.Perhaps never in America’s history has its heart been torn by a single episode as it bled over the kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby. No single individual, including even our greatest and martyred Presidents, has ever succeeded in exciting the same public interest, and securing such public admiration as this comparatively young man accomplished while yet in his tenderest youth.In the selection of a wife he took to himself a young woman who has proven to be a helpmeet indeed, worthy to share with him both honors and ardors. It is natural, therefore, that their baby should have been the subject of popular affection, and when it was snatched from its cradle by men or women, or both, who put paltry gold above every human interest and humane instinct, and who reckoned its possession as more important than peace of body or mind, or interests of heart on the part of others, and who to save their own worthless skins, slew it, the entire land revolted at the deed, and perhaps never in human history have as many tears been shed and as many prayers been offered for any child, living or dead, as succeeded that infamous banditry.As I was thinking upon this, this past week, I fell upon an incident happening in the state of my youth that provides an illustration of the thought with which I want to conclude this discourse.Mr. and Mrs. Mansfield and their little baby girl were among the early settlers of the State of Kentucky.

One day a drunken Indian came to the log cabin and demanded fire water.When it was not instantly handed to him he attacked Mr. Mansfield and was much worsted in the fight that followed.Quitting the house, he slunk away into the woods again.

Mr. Mansfield, knowing the revengeful nature of the Indian, feared to leave his house for many days. By and by the barking of his dog some distance away, at the river bank, called him down to see what game the dog had found.When he was about one hundred yards from the house he heard his wife scream, and turning back he saw the Indian, his little girl in his arms, run into the woods. Hurrying to the house he grabbed down the rifle and fired; but in his excitement the aim was poor and the bullet went wide of its mark.At that moment a man, appeared back of him, and said, “Shall I save your child?”Without even waiting for an answer he drew down a long-barrelled rifle, and as his keen eye rested finally upon the sight thereof, he touched the trigger; a keen report, a little volume of smoke, and the Indian, with a wild death cry, threw the child from him and fell prone upon the ground.The parents, running, swept the child into their arms, and carrying it back to the strange visitor, said, “Thank God; you came just in time. What is your name?” A smile came into the kindly face, and he answered, “Daniel Boone,” and went away.That day Daniel Boone became the destroyer of the enemy, and saved a life.Has it ever occurred to you that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, took upon Himself human flesh that He might be able to fill the kindred office?Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews says,“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; “And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). Thank God that His Son is come, the Saviour of man!Thank God that it is His to snatch them from the very power of the enemy!Thank God that it is possible for Him to speak the word only, and the soul shall live!“He that hath the Son hath life”, and the Son Himself hath said, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out”. Who will come?

Ezekiel 37:11-14

THE PARABLE OF BONES Ezekiel 37:11-14IN the New Testament we have a few instances of a parable, first given by our Lord, and then interpreted by its Author. Most marked among these is the parable of the Sower, spoken in the thirteenth of Matthew, Matthew 13:1-9, and interpreted in the same chapter, Matthew 13:18-23. In the Old Testament the highly symbolizing figures, often employed by the Prophets, are left for our interpretation; and while they are commonly clear, in intent, if studied in connection with the context and in the light of history of the times, we have in this instance of the unburied bodies, an explanation!The same Prophet who gave us the parable of the unburied bodies in Ezekiel 37:1-10 explains the vision in Ezekiel 37:11-14. Such authoritative explanation always adds assurance in understanding. For instance, in the Book of Daniel, to which we shall come when we have completed our studies in Ezekiel, we have a marvelous dream on the part of Nebuchadnezzar, and a highly interesting interpretation of it on the part of Daniel, both recorded in the second chapter of the Book. The better students of the Bible have long been practically agreed as to the historical application of that dream and its interpretation.But when one has reached the eighth chapter of the Book of Daniel, Daniel himself, “in the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar”, experiences a vision involving the conflict of the ram and a he-goat; he then tells us how Gabriel came and interpreted for him that vision—the ram having the two horns as referring to the kings of Media and Persia and the rough goat to the king of Greece— we have not merely a rational interpretation, but a Divinely inspired one.So, in the study of this morning, the Ezekiel vision to which we gave ourselves a week since is now interpreted for Ezekiel himself, and through him for us, by the same Lord who “carried [him] out in the Spirit * * and [sat him] down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones”.In the application, then, of this vision we are not speculating; we are following the lines of inspiration instead.We therefore invite you to consider with us The Unburied Dead, The Open Graves, and The Mighty God.THE DEAD“Then He said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole House of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts”. (Ezekiel 37:11).The bone-dream symbolized Israel’s condition. This is a pathetic confession on the part of Israel. It is not God’s speech to them; but it is His quotation from their lips.

Men are always living in extremes. In the early part of Ezekiel, Israel is boastful, “impenitent children,” stiff-necked, unwilling even to hear what God has to say.

And when, as from day to day, the Prophet brought fresh signs of their failures before them, they repudiated his suggestion; even their “priests * * put no difference between the holy and profane”, “between the unclean and the clean”; and their prophets daubed the people with untempered morter “seeing vanity, and * * lies”, while her people “used oppression” and “vexed the poor and needy”. Pride ruled their wills, determined their ways and works, and often found expression in contemptuous speech.But now they swing suddenly to the opposite extreme. They say, “Our bones are dried”, there is no hope; we are a doomed company! Possibly the second state is better than the first.John McNeill, in his series of sermons, Volume 3, speaking to this subject, says:“Is there not an optimism abroad which is too tranquil, and sunshiny, and hopeful, simply because it has never gone through London, North and South and East and West? It has never dared to face the dismal, damning facts of the situation as they actually are. Therefore it sings its little song; therefore it writes cheery little articles; and therefore, altogether, its prophesying is so weak.

It is not grounded and founded upon actual knowledge. What we need is to be brave enough and strong enough in the Lord, and in the power of His might, to walk about our Zion; to go on that dismal round on which Ezekiel went; and on which Nehemiah went, when he came back from his captivity, and saw, not in vision, but in reality, what this portrays—when he went by night ‘on stumbling steed, with sobbing heart,’ by the burnt gateways and the broken down walls, and all the wreck and desolation of what had been fair Jerusalem.”The calamity howler has never proven himself a competent worker; the man who forever sounds the note of disappointment and despair fails to inspire his fellows.

But on the other hand, there come times when hard facts should be harshly voiced, when a frank confession of failure is good for the soul, when, paradoxical as it may sound, lost hopes lay the foundation for hope itself.It was so with Israel. They had to come into the valley before they could appreciate the mountain; they had to see themselves symbolized in these dead and dried bones before they could desire life in excelsis. They had to realize the meaning of depression before they could appreciate the richness of their own land and the sweetness of their family fellowship.A. W. Archibald in “The Trend of the Centuries” believes that this condition, typified by the valley of dry bones, became, under God, the ground work for coming glory, the impetus of the Jewish Christian movement.He says: “The glory of the chosen people had passed, and they were scattered everywhere. Every important city contained a synagogue.

Those therefore furnished points of contact, centers of Christianity, which was of Judaic origin—for salvation is of the Jews—“ and he quotes Uhlhorn, in his “Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism” as saying in referring to the advantage arising from the Jewish dispersion, that “the Gospel thus found channels everywhere, a net-work of canals, extending over the whole Roman empire, and so was able to diffuse itself rapidly in every direction.”The darkest day, then, is not always the worst day. It is a day in which the sun is appreciated and the prayers for its shining are likely to be put up.

The valley of death gives a new meaning to the mountain-heights of life; the dispersion emphasizes afresh the joy of fellowship with one’s own. The man who can cry, “God be merciful to me a sinned” is not far from the Kingdom.The death of Jaims’ daughter, the mourning in the house of the widow of Nain, the brokenhearted of Bethany—these bleak, black experiences brought in every case their blessing—even the Lord Himself.“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself”!But that is not the end. There is a sentence that follows, and that sentence changes despair to hope, “But in Me is thine help”! (Hosea 13:9).They faced their dead and hopeless estate!“Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts”. In other words, they are awakened at last to their true condition; and strange to say, that speech, made nearly three thousand years ago, is more true today than when it was originally uttered.An article, published in the London papers a year ago, and republished by the Chicago “Tribune”, declared that the Jewish race in Russia was dying under the creed of Lenin, and showed how that was coming to pass in consequence of a combination of circumstances.First of all, The exercise of even the Jewish faith has been suppressed and the God of the Jews denied their worship. The Jewish religion has always been essential to the Jewish race.The same article showed how “the racial solidarity” was being rapidly undermined. Under Bolshevic rule against religion and in favor of interracial marriage, the Russian black Jew was selecting the blond Russian Gentile as a wife, and so the entire Jewish system is breaking as never before in any country. Bolshevism has marked progress in Palestine itself since the close of the last war, and many of the pledges that were made to the Jew in connection with the surrender of Jerusalem are failing to be kept.As the “Prophetic News” said sometime since, “The Arab and the Bolshevist will not permit Israel to progress in her own land without oppression and opposition!”The Jewish apostasy from the faith is fast putting them into the fellowship of atheism itself; and that religious apostasy which is characterizing and cursing the entire world, is having, in Jewry, most fertile soil for its growth; and today some of the most bitter opponents of God to be found on the earth are young Jews.From a spiritual standpoint this confession is just approaching its fulfilment; they are spiritually “dead”, their “hopes are gone”, they are “cut off” from God. But, while it is more true of them today than when it was uttered 2700 years ago, it is not the language of their mouths now. If it were, there would be hope; for it is as true for the Jew as for the Gentile, when he confesses his sin, God is faithful and just to forgive him his sin and to cleanse him from all unrighteousness.But neither confession nor contrition characterizes this nation at this time; nor will it in this age.Jewish missions are the most hopeless of all Christian enterprises.

For the amount invested they bring the least returns; and even among the few professions from that source, fewer still prove themselves sincere. The Hebrew Christian Alliance in America has had to be formed to save the entire movement for Christianizing Jews, from disaster.

So many Hebrew frauds and cheats, are traveling the country over, serving Christ for cash only, making a pretense of Christianity in the sole interest of financial results. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself”; thy bones are dry; thy hope is gone! Thy dispersion is the positive result of thine unfaithfulness.For the Jews this age holds little hope. Truly they are “cut off”. On that day when they cried concerning the Christ, “Crucify Him”! “Crucify Him”! and when they affirmed, “His Blood be on us”, they rejected their own Messiah and took the consequences, and those consequences will continue until “the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled”.There is not a single moral and religious interest that the Jew of this day does not bitterly oppose. The Bible has gone from the public schools largely at the behest of the Jew, and the consequence is, our own blessed America, whose progress is due more to its Christianity than to all other causes combined, is rapidly turning criminal.Paul, who was himself a Jew, when he saw the envy with which the Jews looked upon the multitudes who had come to hear the Gospel preached, and listened to their rabid language against those things which were spoken by Paul, “contradicting and blaspheming”, said,“It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).“And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”.The present condition, therefore, of the Jew is spiritual dearth, darker than the day when Ezekiel quoted these words from Israel’s lips, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts”.THE OPEN GRAVEGod makes to these unburied ones an unconditional promise.“Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:12). The biblical doctrine of election has never been popular. Men are not willing that God should be arbitrary and unconditional; and yet, reason itself demands such characteristics of one who is worthy to be a God at all. Jehovah is no little god who must be conditioned by men, and must speak in accordance with their wills or wiles; and He has never done so. From the day when He elected Abraham to His grace, He has made to his people unconditional promises. Such was His first pledge to this Father of all Jewry; for the Lord said unto Abram:“Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). God did not consult Abraham as to whether he was ready to leave his father’s house or not. He commanded him to go. God did not ask him whether he would prefer to live in some remote section of his country, or in another. He appointed the land instead. And God no more conditioned His promise than He did His command. They were both unconditioned—“Get thee out” and “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee”.That is God!

There is not a single promise that God has made to Israel that He has not kept, save those that He will yet fulfil.Israel’s disobedience has grieved God and brought upon her disaster, distress, dispersion, persecution and hatred; but while their course has doubtless delayed the Divine plan and the purposes of grace toward them, it has not destroyed either. God has neither changed His mind nor repudiated His pledge.Paul discussed this matter in his Letter to the Romans, declaring that his“brethren, * * being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3). And he quotes from Isaiah, the Word of the Lord to Israel,“All day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people” (Romans 10:21).And then he raised the question,“Hath God cast away His people”?And answered it,“God forbid. * * God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2). “Rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy” (Romans 11:11). “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness”? (Romans 11:12). “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead”? (Romans 11:15). That is the exact figure of Ezekiel; and that is the eternal promise and plan of a merciful God— “life from the dead”.Henry Grattan Guinness, in his “History Unveiling Prophecy” says, “The restoration of the Jews, according to the ‘sure Word of prophecy’ immediately follows the termination of the ‘times of the Gentiles’.”It is most amazing how deceived men can imagine that the power of resurrection is with them. The Zionist movement is an illustration of how the Jew has been brought to believe that if he should go back to Palestine, occupy and rejuvenate that land, he could rebuild his nation and come under the Divine blessing.Last year there was a mass meeting, in this city, at which the Minneapolis Jews protested the policy of the British government, which they declared had brought a halt to the movement of Zionism to rehabilitate Palestine. The President of the local Zionist organization called this meeting on the thirteenth anniversary of the Balfour’s declaration, and was eloquent in denouncing the British policy, declaring that their declaration had practically nullified the Balfour promises to allow the Jews to re-inhabit their native country.That is not the great need of the Jew; and that is not the revival to which this text refers; nor the resurrection that God promised. It is however, a step in the fulfilment of prophecy and, though taken in unbelief, the prophetic Word finds fulfilment in that fact.God promises to bring them in again.“I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel”. Dr. Guinness says: “Several stages are to mark this great restoring work. First, the scattered Children of Israel are to be reunited, or unified as a people; secondly, while continuing in unbelief they are to return to their own land, and to be reconstructed as a nation; and thirdly, after passing through the deep trials which await them there, in order to compel them to judge their ways aright, as did Joseph’s brethren in the trial which befell them in Egypt, they are to be led to repentance for their rejection and crucifixion of the Messiah, and converted by some manifestation of Christ; turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.”Thirty years ago modern critics laughed at the idea of a literal fulfilment of this prophecy. But today that fulfilment is taking place full before their eyes. The Jews are gathering back to Judea by the tens of thousands. The Jewish University is located in Jerusalem; the Jewish population of Palestine has trebled since the close of the war of 1918; millions of dollars have been sent from America alone to extend the agricultural organization, build cities, and otherwise develop the Holy Land.A year or so ago the city of St.

Paul, Minn., listened to a noted Rabbi who had just come back from Palestine, who pled the Zionist cause, declaring that the greatest immigration of the day was that into Palestine; and that the movement itself was receiving daily accessions, since there were large numbers of Jewish residents in eastern European countries, who, owing to the economic burden, had set their faces toward the homeland.He stated that in 1925, 35,000 new settlers came into Palestine and that in the year of his speech it was hoped that at least 60,000 prospective immigrants would settle in the land.The God who promised that His Son should ride into Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of an ass, and who, on one day, kept that pledge literally, is not failing to remember His promise to bring these from their open graves in the varied nations of the earth back to their land again.The occupation of the land is to be in Israel’s unbelief. Mark you, these are “dead bodies” that He is bringing back; not living ones. Unbelief is death, and Israel is in the bondage of it. The truth is that Israel is not willingly returning to Judea, the land of promise. They are not going back because of aught that God has said to them. Their migration, in unbelief, is a fulfilment of prophecy that they should be driven back.Thirty-four hundred and twenty years ago the Prophet penned these words as from the Lord:“I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you * * “And * * I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. “And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies” (Leviticus 26:35-37). “And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: “And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: “In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see” (Deuteronomy 28:65-67). “And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers” (Deuteronomy 30:5). I never appreciated until this week how perfectly, from a literal standpoint, God remembers and keeps His Word. You are all familiar with the amazing fall of Jerusalem. How General Allenby walked into it on foot. Not a shot was heard; not a sword was unscabbered; not the least resistance to its occupancy, by the army of the Allies, was experienced. The sound of the air plane seemed to fill the Arabs with awe and they opened the gates and the saviours came in.Now listen to God’s Word:“So shall the Lord of Hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion, and for the Hill thereof. “As birds flying, so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusalem defending also He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it” (Isaiah 31:4-5). The literal fulfilment of this prophecy naturally leads to my last suggestion:THE MIGHTY GOD“Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves, “And shall put My spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:13-14). His Lordship is proven in His saving power.“Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves”.There are in the New Testament records many evidences of Christ’s Deity. There is the testimony of angels: there is the witness of Mary and of Joseph—Godly people. There is the fulfilment of prophecy in the place of His birth, in His parents’ flight into Egypt, and His later return from the same. There is the matchless wisdom revealed at twelve years; there is the speech such as never fell from human lips; and the miracles such as mortal man never wrought.But perhaps, in the whole career of Jesus Christ, there was nothing that so fully demonstrated His Deity as when He stood before the grave of Lazarus, a man four days dead, and a body in a hot climate, supposed to be in decomposition, and said, “Lazarus, come forth”, to be obeyed.Jesus on one occasion said, “Who is good, save God”? How much more pertinent the question, “Who can raise the dead, save God?”And yet, a greater miracle is the miracle of bringing to life those who are “dead in trespasses and sins”. And when God has brought Israel, the people now dead in the same, to life again, He has proven His Lordship over all.

Nature itself will then be compelled to proclaim Him God.Many years ago Rabbi Steven Wise, of New York City, was reported to have said, “The Jews need not expect help from the douma. Human philanthropy has only healed wounds; it has done nothing to prevent them. The time for a revival is at hand.”What he called “a revival” was “the opening again of the synagogue and the restoration of the old time rites.” But, alas, Israel died spiritually, at the very time when the synagogue was constantly patronized and the ceremonials were punctiliously performed. The works of the flesh are not the signs of life. Life is the product of the indwelling Spirit instead, and that is the plan of God. The Jews’ present need is identical with that of every other man who is spiritually dead, and the promise of God is this: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh”.The impartation of His Spirit, that is life.“I * * shall put My spirit in you, and ye shall live”.God’s practices may conform to circumstances; but God’s principles, like Himself, change not.Nicodemus was a Jew, and yet the teaching for Nicodemus was universal in application; and to him Jesus said,“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man he born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. “That which is horn of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. The new life is no respecter of persons; it is proffered alike to Jew and Gentile as the gift of God’s grace.Ernest Gordon, in the life of his great father, Adoniram Judson Gordon, tells of his fellowship with Joseph Rabinowitz, the great Russian rabbi who had been converted to Christ. He quotes from his father the statement, “We shall not soon forget the radiance that would come into his face as he explained the Messianic Psalms, when they came into our morning worship, and he suddenly exclaimed with Thomas; ‘My Lord, and my God’! for he had seen the nail prints.”God’s plan, therefore, for the redemption of the Jew, as for the redemption of the Gentile, is the revelation of Himself in Christ. That made, life instantly ensues; and, it is a life that is blessed, irrespective of circumstances, if it be lived to the full.Moore, in “The Christ Controlled Life” illustrates this fact in a story of Tauler, who being approached by a beggar, said to him, “God give you a good day, my friend.”“I thank God,” said the beggar, “I never have had a bad day.”Tauler was astonished; so changed the form of his salutation, “God give you a happy day, my friend.”“Thank you,” said the beggar, “I never have had an unhappy one!”“Why,” said Tauler, “how can that be?”To which the beggar replied, “When it is fine I thank God, and I am happy. When it rains, I thank God, and am happy. When I am hungry I thank God, and am happy. And since God’s will is my will, that pleases me.”“What,” said Tauler, “if God should cast you into hell?”“If He did,” said the beggar, “I should have two arms to embrace Him with, the arm of my faith wherewith to lean upon His holy humanity, and the arm of my love wherewith I am united to His ineffable Deity, and thus one with Him He would descend thither with me, and there I would rather be with Him in hell than anywhere else without Him.“But,” said Tauler, taken aback by the reply, “who are you?”“I am a king,” said the beggar.“A king!” said Tauler. “Where is your kingdom?”“Here,” said the beggar, laying his hand on his heart, “The Kingdom of God is within!” For “if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him”.The impartation of His Spirit is more than life!“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, “Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23). Finally, the saved shall acknowledge His power.“Then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:14).Bishop Janes used to tell a story, the parallel of which many of us have known, and the story itself is a fit illustration of God’s power to save even the most prejudiced.“A Jewess out of curiosity attended one evening a revival meeting. She was not specially moved by conviction during the service, but as she returned home a thought came flitting across the sky of her mind—“What if Jesus was the Christ?” The thought so settled itself in her mind that she found herself unable to stay away from the meeting the next night, and, during the second service, the possibility that Christ was the Messiah sank deeper into her heart. She went again the third night, and on that occasion the conviction seized upon her soul that Jesus was the Christ, and she went home horror-stricken with the thought that she was a poor, lost sinner. The agony of her mind was so great that she aroused her husband at midnight, proud and wealthy Jew as he was, and persuaded him to go to the house of a neighboring Christian and get her a copy of the New Testament. Then, as upon her bended knees she, for the first time in her life, seriously opened the New Testament, a prayer went up from her heart,“O Thou God of Abraham, the father of my people, give me light that I may know the truth!”She opened the Book at the first chapter of Romans and began to read. She read the Apostle’s wonderful words in amazement, until she came to the sixteenth verse, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”.

These words went through her soul like a flash of lightning from Heaven. Then and there she came to a conscious knowledge of the truth. Jesus revealed Himself to her as her Saviour, and she entered by faith into the joy of salvation.This same glorious experience may be yours today if you will only give yourself bravely and courageously to be the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.