SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/17/2015
6:21 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Dead
Army
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
37:4-8
Message of the
verses: “4 Again He said to me,
"Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ’O dry bones, hear the word of
the LORD.’ 5 “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ’Behold, I will cause
breath to enter you that you may come to life. 6 ’I will put sinews on you,
make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you
may come alive; and you
will know that I am the LORD.’" 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a
noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I
looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.”
First off this is not going to be too long of a SD, and
second “Do you remember the song from yesterday?” It is coming to life as you read these
verses.
In the John MacArthur Study Bible we read the following
comment from verses 4-6 about “Prophesy over these bones.” “Ezekiel is to proclaim God’s pledge to
reassemble Israelites from the world and restore the nation of Israel to life
(v.5) and give them His Spirit (v. 14) in true salvation and spiritual
life. Clearly, God is promising the
resurrection of the nation of Israel and its spiritual regeneration (cf.
36:25-27).” MacArthur speaks of the
Spirit going into the children of Israel but that is the last thing that
happens. Now let me tell you what I have
learned about this process. First of all
this is a picture of God calling the nation of Israel back into existence which
I believe is what happened in May of 1948.
Once the nation is back in the land we see the picture of the bones,
sinews, and flesh coming together, but as of yet I do not believe that the
Spirit is in the children of Israel. It
was truly a miracle from God to bring Israel back into the land and cause the
nation to be born in one day. “Isa 66:8
“Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in
one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed,
she also brought forth her sons.” I
believe that Israel will receive the Spirit sometime late in the last part of
the Tribulation Period.
Now we see in the past that Ezekiel was told to prophesy to
the mountains (6:2; 36:1), and in 20:47 he prophesied to the forests and now we
see him being told by the Lord to prophesy to a valley full of dry bones, we
have said before that there were some strange and weird things happening in
this book. Now if this was anyone but
the Lord who told him to do this we probably not believe it would happen “Heb
4:12 For the word of God is living and
active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the
division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the
thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
This is a good verse to look at for it was the Word of God that Ezekiel was
listening to at this time. We see in
this verse from Hebrews that God’s Word has life and next we will look at a
verse from 1 Peter “for you have been born again not of seed which is
perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of
God (1:23)” and this verse tells us that God’s Word also imparts life.” Jesus said in John 6:63b “the words that I
have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “God’s Word of command in Ezekiel 37:4 is followed by
His word of promise in verses 5-6.
Ezekiel believed the promise and obeyed the command, and the bones come
together. Then the skeletons were
covered with flesh and skin so that what was lying there in the valley looked
like a sleeping army. The bodies lacked
only one thing: life.”
4/17/2015 6:51 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment