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WEEKLY
Volume 3 Number 40
1 March 2009
Hear the Word of the
LORD
(Message
delivered by Rev Hien Nguyen at the Worship Service, 2:00 pm, Mar 1, 09)
Text: Ezek
37:4
We must thank God and
His gracious work in our lives as the Divine Potter to the clay,
transforming us from rebellious sinners to His beloved children:
revealing Himself, His truth and His salvation in Christ to us,
convicting us of our sins and His righteous judgment, enabling us to
repent, drawing us to our Saviour Jesus Christ, giving us faith and
helping us trust in Christ. It is vital and wise for you and me to be in
our almighty and gracious Father’s hands with our full dependence and
submission so that He may freely perform His good work in us and we
shall be like Christ when He comes (Phil 1:6; 1 John 3:2).
Last week, we learnt
about God’s gracious Word to His unfaithful people Israel (the Southern
Kingdom) through His prophet Jeremiah, calling them back to Him in
repentance and submission so that He might remould or reshape them into
a good vessel in His hand, “O house of
Israel, cannot I do
with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the
potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel”
(Jer 18:6). Sadly, they ignored and rejected God’s gracious Word, kept
on living in sins, worshipping idols and doing wicked things before God,
so the righteous and holy God had to judge, chastise and punish them,
“Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this
city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole
again” (Jer 19:11). Then, God’s Word was fulfilled: the people of
Israel were taken in captivity to Babylon and the City of Jerusalem was
burnt and destroyed. It is so serious to ignore and reject God’s Word!
God also used His
prophet Jeremiah to foretell His people Israel that they would be in
exile for 70 years and after that He would bring them back to their
land, “To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until
the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she
kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years” (2 Chron 36:21;
cf. Jer 25:9-12). However, they did not remember God’s gracious and
faithful Word of forgiveness and deliverance while they were in Babylon.
They missed the blessed worship of the living and true God in Jerusalem
and wept, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept,
when we remembered Zion…How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange
land? If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning”
(Ps 137:1, 4, 5). They seemed to give up their hope in desperation,
saying, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off
for our part” (Ezek 37:11). It is also a great loss of peace, joy
and hope if you and I do not remember God’s gracious Word in our
troubles, trials or afflictions. God graciously used His prophet Ezekiel
to remind His people of His gracious Word and command them to hear His
Word, “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD” (Ezek 37:4). In
all situations, our gracious LORD always has His gracious Word for us to
hear. Shall not you and I wisely hear our good Shepherd’s voice? Truly,
our Lord Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and
they follow me” (John 10:27). Then, what can we learn from the
vision of the dry bones and what are our proper attitudes towards our
gracious, faithful and sovereign God?
Background of the
Prophet Ezekiel and the Vision of Dry Bones
Ezekiel (means God
strengthens) was a priest and called to be God’s prophet, “The
word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi,
in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the
LORD was there upon him” (Ezek 1:3). The people of Judah were taken
captivity to Babylon in two stages. The first one took place in 606 BC
with those captives including Daniel. The other took place in 597 BC
with more captives including King Jehoiachin and Ezekiel. Then, the City
of Jerusalem was burnt and destroyed in 586 BC. Ezekiel was Jeremiah’s
younger contemporary. While Jeremiah ministered God’s Word to His people
and later to the remnant in Jerusalem, Ezekiel ministered God’s Word to
His people in Babylon. Ezekiel was also Daniel’s contemporary. When
Ezekiel was taken in captivity to Babylon, Daniel had been there for 9
years with a high position in the palace (Ezek 14:14; 20; 28:3).
The prophet Ezekiel’s
wife was “the desire of his eyes.” A great loss in his life was
the death of his wife in Jerusalem when the armies of Babylon laid siege
against this City, and this matched the grief of the people when they
witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem. However, Ezekiel was commanded
not to grieve her death, “Son of man, behold, I take away from thee
the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor
weep, neither shall thy tears run down” (Ezek 24:15). Ezekiel needed
to be strong and firm in the Lord to minister God’s Word to His people
in tough situations in exile.
Ezekiel was inspired by
God to write His Word recorded in the book bearing his name, Ezekiel.
His book told about Jerusalem’s siege (chs 4-5), God’s judgment against
His people due to their sin of idolatry (chs 6-9), God’s glory departing
from His temple (chs 11-12), man’s accountability for his own sins (ch
18), God’s judgments against the nations surrounding Israel (chs 25-32),
and the future restoration of the people Israel (chs 33-48). God gave
Ezekiel several visions, one of which is the vision of the dry bones (ch
37). Ezekiel was carried out in the Spirit of the LORD and set down in
the midst of the valley full of dry bones. What can we learn from this
vision and what are our proper attitudes?
God’s Righteous
Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility
God is always right in
His judgment, and no one can blame God for anything even when he is
chastised, punished or condemned due to his own sins. “The soul that
sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the
righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of
the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his
sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which
is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die” (Ezek
18:20-21). The people of Israel could not blame God for the chastisement
and judgment they suffered in exile due to their sins, idolatry and
wickedness. Their proper attitude should be the humble prayer in
repentance and call for God’s mercy like Daniel, “And I prayed unto
the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and
dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and
to them that keep his commandments; We have sinned, and have committed
iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing
from thy precepts and from thy judgments: Neither have we hearkened unto
thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our
princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord,
righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at
this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and
unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the
countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that
they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of
face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have
sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and
forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; Neither have we
obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set
before us by his servants the prophets… Yea, all Israel have
transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy
voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is
written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned
against him…Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought
it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he
doeth: for we obeyed not his voice…O my God, incline thine ear, and
hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is
called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee
for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear; O
Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O
my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.” (Dan
9:4-11, 14, 18, 19).
Whatever may happen to
our lives, let us acknowledge that God is always righteous in all His
works. Even when we are chastised, we should see that we deserve His
chastisement due to our sins and then humbly cry for His mercy and
forgiveness in repentance.
Trust in Our
Gracious, Faithful, Almighty and Sovereign God
The people of Israel
were like marred clay due to their defects and like a broken vessel due
to their unrepentant sins. When they were chastised and in exile year
after year, they nearly lost their hope like dry bones, saying, “Our
bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts”
(Ezek 37:11). Sadly, they forgot that the LORD and His Word were their
Hope.
God set Ezekiel in the
midst of the valley full of dry bones, caused him to pass by them round
about, and asked him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” (v 3).
How can the dry bones live and stand upon their own feet? Definitely, it
is impossible with men. When the helpless people of Israel were in exile
in Babylon in 597 BC, how could they come back to their country? When
the people of Israel were scattered all over the world in 70 AD, and
their country was wiped off from the world map, how could they come back
to rebuild their country? It was impossible without God’s sovereign and
gracious work. Thank God and praise the Lord for there is nothing too
hard for Him and all things are possible with Him. “Behold, I am the
LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?” (Jer
32:27), and “For with God nothing shall be impossible… The
things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke
1:37; 18:27), and “With men this is impossible; but with God all
things are possible” (Matt 19:26; cf. Mark 10:27). God was still
faithful although His people Israel were unfaithful, and He did bring
His repentant people back to their land as He promised: Ezra and
Nehemiah led His people back to their land in 458 BC and 445 BC
respectively. The people of Israel came back to establish their country
in Palestine in 1948! All is by God’s grace alone! Dear friends, do you
and I really and wholeheartedly trust in our gracious, faithful,
almighty and sovereign God even in our hopelessness and helplessness?
Let us wholeheartedly trust in our God and in His perfectly preserved
Word (Ps 12:6-7) because nothing is impossible with Him.
Hear God’s Word and
Never Give Up Our Hope
Our almighty God was
able to create the heaven and the earth and everything in it out of
nothing by His Word, then let us wisely hear God’s Word and never give
up our hope. God was able to create Adam from the dust of the ground and
Eve from Adam’s rib. Then, God was also able to make dry bones live and
they should know that He is the LORD: when Ezekiel prophesied, there was
a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his
bone… the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered
them above: …Then Ezekiel prophesied and said to the wind as God
commanded him, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood
up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (vv 7-10). It is truly a
gracious and mighty work of God! The Holy Spirit is able to revive us
and fill you and me with His breath of life so that we may stand up upon
our feet to serve our living and true God and fight a good fight of
faith in these last days of compromise and apostasy.
Dear friends, no matter
what may happen to us, let us hear God’s Word and never give up our
hope. God is our Hope and His Word is our Hope, “For thou art my
hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth” (Ps 71:5; cf. 1
Tim 1:1) and “My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy
word…Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word” (Ps
119:81, 114).
Conclusion
Dear friends, our Lord
Jesus says, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life” (John 6:63). May God help you and me understand His righteous
sovereignty and our responsibility. May God help us humbly come back to
Him in repentance when we are chastised; and even in our helplessness
and hopelessness, may God help us not to give up our hope, but hear His
Word and turn our eyes unto Him and trust in His sovereignty,
faithfulness, power, mercy and grace. Nothing is too hard for our
almighty God and nothing is impossible with Him. Praise the Lord!
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