SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/18/2015
8:11 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Living Army
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
37:9-14
Message of the
verses: “9 Then He said to me,
"Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath,
’Thus says the Lord GOD, "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe
on these slain, that they come to life."’" 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came
into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
11 Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold,
they say, ’Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely
cut off.’ 12 “Therefore
prophesy and say to them, ’Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I will open
your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will
bring you into the land of Israel. 13 “Then you will know that I am the LORD,
when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My
people. 14 “I will put My
Spirit within you and you
will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I,
the LORD, have spoken and done it," declares the LORD.’"”
Dr. Wiersbe writes the following about the word which is
translated “wind” “In the Hebrew language, the word ruah can mean wind, breath, spirit, or Spirit. Jesus made use of this when He spoke to
Nicodemus about the blowing of the wind and the new birth through the Spirit
(John 3:5-8). There’s also a reference
here to the creation of Adam in Genesis 2.
At his creation, Adam was complete physically, but he had no life until
the breath of God entered into him (v.7).
When Ezekiel spoke the living Word of God, the breath from God entered
the dead bodies and they lived and stood to their feet.” I would like at this time to give some insight
into when I became a believer and as we look first at John 3:5-8 I will then
comment on it. “5 Jesus answered,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 “That which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 “Do not be amazed that
I said to you, ’You must be born again.’ 8 "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of
it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone
who is born of the Spirit."”
That is exactly what happened to me whenever I became born from above as
Jesus said in this section of Scripture.
I had heard the gospel as I listened to tapes about the end times, it
was as if I had never heard it before and as a matter of fact I never remember
hearing it before. I don’t remember
praying to ask Jesus into my heart, but as Jesus said in this section the wind
blows where it wishes and this is speaking of how the Spirit moves on a
person. All I know that I was different,
different in a good way different in that the Lord had cleaned up my mouth as I
did not swear anymore nor want to swear anymore, something I had tried to stop earlier in my life as I knew it
was wrong, but I could not stop until I became born from above. This is what Ezekiel is prophesying about as
these bones become alive they are born from above by the Spirit of God. Remember what Romans 11:26 says “and so all
Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM
ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB."” It seems to me that this will all happen
during the last part of the Tribulation Period, but I am sure others have
different ideas, but that is what I have learned about this and so that is why
I write what I did.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “There will come a day when God’s
living Word of command will go forth and call His people from their ‘graves,’
the nations to which they have been scattered across the world (Ezek. 37:21;
Jer. 31:8; Matt. 24:31). The Children of
Israel will come together, but the nation will not have spiritual life until
they see their Messiah, believing on Him, and receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit of life (Ezek. 39:29); Zech. 12:9-13:1).
The nation will be born—and born again—‘in a day (Isa. 66:7-9).” He writes the following endnote on this
section: “To interpret this vision as
announcing the return of the remnant from Babylon or even the emergence of a
nation of Israel in the world community is to misinterpret the message. Political Israel today is like the standing
army without life, and there has been no great return of Jews to their Holy
Land. The fulfillment of the vision is
yet to come.” At this present time there
are more Jews living in the Land of Israel than the rest that are still
scattered around the world. However I
believe what Dr. Wiersbe wrote in this endnote, but it was written before so
many Jews had returned to Israel.
I have mentioned that one of the reasons that I read
Warren Wiersbe’s commentaries and books it because that they are easy to
understand and they seem to convict me, especially when he writes about the
spiritual meanings of different passages like this one and I want to share it
in this Spiritual Diary. “Of course,
there is a spiritual application in this vision for any individual or ministry
that is in need of new life from God.
Too often God’s people are like that stand army, lifelike but not
alive. How does the life come? Through the Holy Spirit using the faithful proclamation
of the Word of God. Said Charles
Spurgeon, ‘Decayed churches can most certainly be revived by the preaching of
the Word, accompanied by the coming of the heavenly breath from the four winds.’ From time to time, in response to His people’s
prayers, the Lord has seen fit to send a new ‘breath of life’ to His church and
His servants, and for that blessing we should be praying today.” I do pray for that every day.
4/18/2015 8:45 PM
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