Ezekiel 37:9

Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

The vision of the valley of the dry bones

All else was done. Three things are prominent--the multitude, the dryness, and the isolation. We shall not stay to draw out the figure in detail in its national application. But who does not do it for himself when once the thought is suggested? What are the despairing things in the problem this day presented to the statesman, to the philanthropist, to the Christian, as any one of the three gives his mind to the study of his dear, his suffering, his unmanageable people? Is net indeed multitude the first of them? The population has outgrown its spot of earth; has outgrown its home supplies and resources; has outgrown its civilising influences; has outgrown its means of grace. But if multitude is one despairing thought, another is dryness. What is sometimes called “the milk of human kindness”--that indescribable something which ought to be capable of being appealed to as sure to respond, that appreciation of kindness in the motive, in the intention, in the effort to serve, that meeting half-way the fellow feeling of love--all this seems to have been (as the vision would say) dried up and dried out of the human being which meets us in the streets and lanes, the high roads and hedges, into which the messenger of an unselfish compassion tries to make his way: the bones are very many--that is not the worst of it--they are also by long habit, of neglect on the one side, of suspicion on the other, so utterly dry. There is yet a third despairing thing--it is the isolation. Each bone, of the once one compact frame, lies apart and separate. The parable is too easily read. The corporate life, as we speak, is extinct in vast masses of our people. Patriotism, loyalty, public spirit, are not ideas, not names, only, they are jests and gibes. “Every man for himself” is the hateful maxim--hateful enough if it were all, but there is a companion maxim--“and every man’s hand against his brother!” We turn for a moment from the social to the religious aspect. Multitude--dryness--isolation--yes, they are all here. It is not only the difficulty (though that is enormous) of providing for what we call the spiritual destitution of the masses--masses springing up suddenly in valley and mountain, in harbour and hamlet, in town and country. We would look more broadly at the religion of our times. Certainly it has multitude. Legion is its superscription. This of itself is perplexing: perplexing any way: deeply depressing to the lover of order, to the educated churchman who must have the exact thing or nothing. It is idle to sit wishing for what men call union--generally meaning by it uniformity; generally meaning by it a uniformity to be brought about by the unconditional surrender of all but one form to the one. It is too late--or too soon--for this. The one hope now for religion is the practical confederation (without much talking about it, without programme or treaty of peace) of all schools and all parties, of all sects and all churches against what ought to be the common foe of all--ignorance and profaneness and infidelity and sin. And, in order to this, a spiritual unity--the holding of a unity of spirit in the bond of peace. “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live”--live each first, live then all. We hasten to our last use of the text, which is the individual. Is it fanciful to see a valley full of dry bones within the continent of the one being? Multitude--dryness--isolation--have those words, those despairing things we have called them, no meaning for the man? Has the scattering of Babel, the very confusion of tongues, no parable for the individual? Oh, how many provinces, how many islands and continents are there in one life, in one bosom! The disunion which works all around works first within. Oh, if there were peace within, how many discords would be precluded or healed around. Uncertain tempers, inordinate affections, unruly passions, hurtful lusts--desire of things forbidden, indisposition to things commanded--doubts about revealed truth, alienation from God in His beauty and His holiness--questionings what to think of Christ--suspenses about things vital to faith, vital to hope, vital to charity--these are the things spoken of when we make the vision personal. There is no need to traverse this part of the ground: we all plead guilty to the charge of selfishness. Rather let us listen to what the vision tells of as the steps of the revival. We can trace them more clearly in the individual case than in the collective. There is, first, what a prophet calls a “noise”--the margin of the revised version calls it a “thundering”: a “shaking”--the revised version calls it an “earthquake.” What is it in the man? It is something, it is anything, which interrupts the course of the everyday life. It may be a loss--it may be a disappointment--it may be a sickness--it may be a death. The immediate result of this shaking, where it has its proper work, will be the earnest effort to amend the life. God, whose hand is in all, yet expects this of the man. If he wishes to be saved, he must help the work by a reformation of the life. He must give up, in resolution and honest effort, his known sins. He must exert himself, in resolution and honest effort, to do his known duties. And then, sooner or later, not all at once but little by little, that prophecy to the wind, the breath, the spirit, shall make itself audible within, and God Himself shall “breathe upon the slain,” so that the dead carcase shall become a living man, and the gathering of the bones and the reconstruction of the frame shall have its perfect work in the reanimation of the whole by the entrance of the life-giving Spirit. (Dean Vaughan.)

The wind of the Holy Ghost blowing upon the dry bones in the valley of vision

I. Speak a little unto this deadness which is incident unto a people externally in covenant with God.

1. Some kinds of deadness.

(1) Death, properly so called, is a thing so well known that it is needless for me to tell you what it is.

(2) There is a death which is metaphorical; which is nothing else but a disease or distemper of the soul, whereby it is rendered unmeet and incapable for holy and spiritual exercises. And this again is two fold, either total or partial. There is a total death incident unto the wicked and ungodly, who are stark dead, and have nothing of spiritual life in them at all. There is a partial death incident to believers, whom God hath raised out of the grave of an unrenewed state, and in whose souls He hath implanted a principle of spiritual life. And this partial death, incident to believers, consists in a manifest decay of spiritual principles and habits, in the abating of their wonted life and vigour and activity in the way and work of the Lord: their faith, their love, their hope, and other graces, are all in a fainting and languishing condition; they lie dormant in the soul, like the life of the tree that lies hid in its root, without fruit or blossoms, during the winter season.

2. Some of the causes of this spiritual deadness.

(1) Abstinence or neglect of food, you know, will soon bring the body into a pining, languishing condition: so, if the means of grace be not diligently improven, if we neglect, by faith, to apprehend and to improve Christ, and to feed upon Him, whose “flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed,” the spiritual life of the soul will soon languish and wither (John 6:53).

(2) Surfeiting the soul with sensual pleasure is another great cause of spiritual death (Hosea 4:11).

(3) Inactivity and sloth in salvation and generation work is another cause of spiritual deadness.

(4) The contagion of ill example, of a carnal world, and irreligious relations, has a fatal influence this way.

(5) Some deadly wound in the soul, not carefully noticed, may be the cause of spiritual death.

(6) A holy God has sometimes a righteous and holy hand in this spiritual death, that the Lord’s people are liable unto, by withdrawing and suspending the influences of His Spirit from them. He does it sometimes in a way of awful and adorable sovereignty, to show that He is not a debtor unto any of His creatures. Sometimes He does it to humble His people, and to prevent their pride, which makes Him to behold them afar off. He does it to make them prize Christ, and see their continual need of fresh supplies out of His fulness. He does it sometimes for the trial of His people, to see if they will follow Him in a wilderness, in a land that is not sown, as well as when he is feeding them with sensible communications of His grace and Spirit; to see if they will live on Him by faith, when they cannot live by sight or sense. Sometimes he does it for their chastisement, to correct them for their iniquities. Not hearkening to the motions of His Spirit, is one great reason why the Lord withdraws His Spirit. Lukewarmness and formality in the discharge of duty is another cause of it, as we see in the church of Laodicea; it made Him to spue that church out of His mouth. Prostituting the gifts and graces of the Spirit unto carnal, selfish, and base ends, to procure a name, or make a show in the world. Sinning against light, trampling upon conscience, as David no doubt did in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba; whereby he provoked the Lord so far to leave him, that he cries out (Psalms 51:11). Barrenness and unfruitfulness under the means of grace. Their not listening carefully to the voice of God in ordinances and providences (Psalms 81:11).

3. Some of the symptoms of it and would to God they were not too visible, rife, and common.

(1) Want of appetite after the bread and water of life is a symptom of spiritual death.

(2) Though a man have something of an appetite, yet if he do not grow, or look like his food, it looks something dangerous and death-like.

(3) Ye know, when death takes a dealing with a person, it makes his beauty to fade. Perhaps the day has been, O believer, when the beauty of holiness adorned every step of thy conversation; but now, alas! the beauty of thy conversation is sullied and stained, by lying among the pots of sin. This says, that spiritual death is dealing with thy soul.

(4) Death not only wastes the beauty, but the strength also (Ecclesiastes 12:3).

(5) Death wastes the natural heat and warmness of the body. So it is a sign of a spiritual decay and deadness, when wonted zeal for God and His glory, and the concerns of His Church and His Kingdom, is abated.

(6) A dead man, you know, cannot move, but only as he is moved from without, in regard he wants a principle of motion within. So it is a sign of spiritual death, even in believers, when external motives and considerations have a greater influence in the duties of religion upon them, than an internal principle of faith and love.

II. Speak a little unto these breathings and influences of the Spirit of God, which are absolutely necessary for the revival of the Lord’s people under deadness.

1. The nature of these breathings or influences. The influences and gifts of the Spirit of God are of two sorts, either common or saving.

2. The variety of these influences of the Spirit.

(1) There are the convincing influences of the Spirit (John 16:8).

(2) There are the enlightening influences and breathings of the Spirit. Hence He is compared unto eye-salve (Revelation 3:18).

(3) There are the renewing influences of the Spirit. We are said to be “saved by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). Hence He is called “a new Spirit.”

(4) There are the comforting influences of the Spirit. This is the south wind, as it were, gentle and easy, and refreshing; and therefore He is called the Comforter.

(5) There are the corroborating and strengthening influences of the Spirit. By the breathings of the Spirit the feeble are made “like David, and as the angel of God before Him.”

(6) There are the drawing and enlarging influences of the Spirit. He is like oil to their chariot wheels; and when He comes, they are as the chariots of Amminadib, or a willing people.

(7) There are the sin-mortifying and sin-killing influences of the Spirit.

(8) There are the interceding influences of the Spirit (Romans 8:26).

(9) There are the sealing and witnessing influences of the Spirit.

3. The manner of the acting or operation of these influences, or how it is that this wind blows upon the soul.

(1) The wind of the Holy Ghost blows freely; the Spirit acts as an independent sovereign (John 3:8).

(2) He breathes on the soul sometimes very surprisingly.

(3) These breathings and influences of the Spirit are sometimes very piercing and penetrating.

(4) The breathings of this wind are very powerful, strong, and efficacious. He masters the darkness of the mind, the contumacy and rebellion of the will, and the carnality of the affections: the enmity of the heart against God, and all the spiritual wickedness that are in the high places of the soul, are made to fall down at His feet, as Dagon did before the ark of the Lord.

(5) Although He act thus powerfully and irresistibly, yet it is with an overcoming sweetness, so as there is not the least violence offered unto any of the natural faculties of the soul.

(6) There is something in the breathing of this wind that is incomprehensible by reason (John 3:8).

(7) These influences of the Spirit are sometimes felt before they be seen; as you know a man will feel the wind, and hear it, when he cannot see it.

4. The necessity of these breathings.

(1) That they are necessary, will appear--From the express declaration of Christ (John 15:5). From the express acknowledgment of the saints of God upon this head (2 Corinthians 3:5). From the earnest prayers of the saints for the breathings of this wind (Song of Solomon 4:16).

(2) To what are these breathings necessary? To the quickening of the elect of God, when they are stark dead in trespasses and sins. For the suitable discharge of every duty of religion. For accomplishing our spiritual warfare against sin, Satan, and the world. To the exercise of grace already implanted in the soul.

5. Some of the reasons of these influences of the Spirit: for the wind, you know, has its seasons and times of blowing and breathing.

(1) The Spirit’s reviving influences blow very ordinarily in a day of conversion.

(2) When the soul has been deeply humbled under a sense of sin and unworthiness.

(3) After a dark night of desertion, when the Lord returns again.

(4) Times of earnest prayer and wrestling; for He giveth His Spirit to them that ask it (Ezekiel 36:37).

(5) Times of serious meditation (Psalms 63:5; Psalms 63:8).

(6) Communion days are sometimes days of sweet influences.

(7) The day of death has sometimes been found to be a day of such pleasant gales of the Spirit, that they have been made to enter into the haven of glory with triumph.

III. The life that is effected and wrought in the souls of God’s elect by these influences and breathings of the Holy Spirit.

1. It is a life of faith (Galatians 2:20).

2. It is a life of justification.

3. It is a life of reconciliation with God.

4. It is a life of holiness and sanctification: for the Spirit of the Lord is a cleansing, purifying, and renewing Spirit.

5. It is a very lightsome and comfortable life: and no wonder; for His name is The Comforter. His consolations are so strong, that they furnish the soul with ground of joy in the blackest and cloudiest day (Habakkuk 3:17).

6. It is a life of liberty; for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

7. It is a hid life (Colossians 3:3).

8. It is a heavenly life; they are made to live above the world: “Our conversation is in heaven.”

9. It is a royal life: for they are “made kings and priests unto God” (Revelation 1:6).

10. It is an eternal life (John 17:3).

IV. The use of the doctrine.

1. The first use shall be of trial and examination.

(1) If these breathings have blown upon thy soul, man, woman, then He has blown away the vail and face of the covering that was naturally upon thy mind and understanding.

(2) If the wind of the Holy Ghost has blown upon thy soul, He has blown away some of the filth of hell that did cleave to thy soul, and has transformed thee into His own image (2 Corinthians 3:18).

(3) If this wind has blown upon your souls, then it has driven you from your lying refuges, and made you take sanctuary in Christ.

(4) If ever you felt any of the reviving gales of this wind of the Spirit, you will long for new gales and breathings of it; and when these breathings are suspended and withheld, your souls will be like to faint, as it were, like a man that wants breath.

(5) If you have felt the breathings of this wind you will not snuff up the east wind of sin and vanity (John 4:14).

(6) If this wind has blown upon your soul, then you will follow the motion of this wind; you will not run cross to this wind, but will go along with it. But, say you, How shall I know if I be led by the Spirit of God? I answer, If ye follow the Spirit, then you will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; but, on the contrary, you will study to “crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts.” Then the way wherein you walk will be a way of holiness, for He is a Spirit of sanctification; and a way of truth. Ye know leading imports spontaneity and willingness.

2. The second use shall be of exhortation.

(1) Consider that spiritual deadness is very prevalent in the day wherein we live.

(2) Consider the evil and danger of spiritual deadness. The evil of it will appear, if ye consider that it is a frame of spirit directly cross to the command of God. The evil and danger of it appears further from this, that it unfits the soul for every duty, and mars our communion and fellowship with God. It opens a door for all other sin, and renders a man an easy prey unto every temptation. It lays a foundation for sad and terrible challenges from conscience.

(3) Consider, that as the breathings of the Spirit are necessary for every duty, so particularly for that solemn work which you have before your hands of commemorating the death of the exalted Redeemer.

(4) Consider the excellency of these influences of the Spirit. They blow from an excellent original: the Holy Ghost is the author of them; and you know He proceeds from the Father and the Son. So that a whole Trinity, as it were, convey themselves with these breathings. They are the purchase of a Redeemer’s blood, and therefore excellent. These influences of the Spirit, they, as it were, supply Christ’s room while He is in glory. (E. Erskine.)

The Spirit’s advent

The vision illustrates--

I. The deadly effects of sin.

1. It begets death. Although the upas tree in Java feeds on wholesome soil, and light and dew, it yet spreads the miasma of death; so sin, the more it flourishes in the heart of man, the more completely it destroys all good.

2. This is the testimony of experience. Even thy secret sin has benumbed thy best feelings, robbed thee of thy peace, raised a barrier between thee and God. It has undermined thy character, blinded thine eyes to the beauty of truth, dulled thy sense of duty, blunted the fine edge of conscience.

3. Observance of others deepens this conviction. On every side we see men and women ruined by sin. Conscience, reverence for God, filial love, aspirations after a holy life--all dead.

II. God’s power we save.

1. Life giving is the prerogative of God alone.

2. The fulness of the Spirit’s power is required.

3. A variety of force and influence is sent forth. Some need terror, others softening influences.

III. The place of human agency.

1. It is in man’s power to stay this life-giving energy.

2. The condition of His advent is very simple. Simply ask.

3. The alternative is a thing to be dreaded. (J. D. Davies, M. A.)

Life to the dead

I. Forms without life. The work had reached an advanced stage even before the prophecy of the breath. Separate bones had been fitted and articulated together, flesh was laid upon the skeleton, and skin covered it. This was Divine, not human work. The prophet had spoken the message, but God had given the power. Yet these forms were powerless, for all the purposes of life, until quickened by the breath.

1. There may be a Divine work upon the natures of men, which shall, nevertheless, stop short of spiritual life. Let two men come before you. One is opposed to Divine truth, or, at least, is utterly indifferent to it. Science attracts him; politics stir him; art charms him; music fascinates him; commerce absorbs him. But the Bible is without beauty or power to him; it has no place in his thoughts, and exercises no influence in his life. Let another stop forward. He has a perfect understanding of the Cross of Christ, and the work which was done there; he is able to explain to you very clearly how a soul may be justified before God through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The study of the subject is a recreation to him. He knows how to be justified with God, but has never sought justification. He knows that he must be born again, but has never prayed to be regenerated. In that man we see a beginning of the work of God. God has opened his mind to understand the great truths connected with the Gospel of Christ. He knows them all, and in those truths he has the vantage ground for spiritual action.

2. These forms possess all the capabilities of life. You have all the faculties for reverence, trust, and loving consecration; you understand how to use these powers in every direction of your life, save in that one upward direction that looks towards God. You have faith and love toward those around, and consecration to those who are dear; but to God, no trust, no love, no dedication. You are without spiritual life. The very development of these capabilities is an element of hope. Simply receive Christ, and God has given you all the capabilities that are necessary. Only your connection with Christ is wanted to attain spiritual life.

3. Yet, prior to the breath, these forms are powerless for all the purposes of life. You may pay homage to the beauty of truth and Christian principles; you may even speak reverently and tenderly of the loveliness of Christ--you can hardly help doing that; if you have any susceptibility, you can hardly withhold from Jesus the meed of praise--but these will not avail if there be no spiritual life. This is not only true of the individual Christian, but also of the Christian Church. No correctness of form and appearance will avail without spiritual life. I would rather belong to a Church that has some blunder in its organisation, but, at the same time, is endowed with the vigour of the Holy Ghost, than I would belong to some correct organisation in which there is no spiritual life and strength.

II. The inspiration of life.

1. The working of the Holy Spirit is as essential to salvation as the work of Jesus. You will not be conscious always of His working. You will only be conscious of certain feelings in your own heart. If you should feel an anxious desire to serve Christ, and to love Him, be sure it comes from the Spirit. Act upon it. Find your way to Christ.

2. The Holy Spirit does work in response to the prayer of God’s servant, for we read that the prophet prophesied to the breath, and the breath came.

(1) The Holy Spirit is the great hope of the Church today. If it was necessary three centuries ago that God should raise up Luther to press the great truth of justification by faith, it is needful today that the work of the Holy Spirit should be presented in all its grandeur, and that the Church should be roused to plead for His mighty power. It is in answer to prayer that the Holy Spirit will work.

(2) The Holy Spirit’s work is as essential for personal salvation as it is for the Church. (Colmer B. Symes, B. A.)

Come, O breath

I. Let us look at the surrounding scene and see if that does not say to us we must have the Holy Ghost. What was the scene that met Ezekiel’s eyes? We must note this, because we purpose to make what I think will be a legitimate use of the vision. When Ezekiel looked abroad, he saw human nature wrecked, and I pray you mark it--not human nature rather spoiled of its beauty--not human nature sick--not human nature dying--but human nature dead--nay, more, dead and dislocated. When he looked abroad, it was human nature wrecked and ruined. The bones were scattered. They were so completely scattered, and death had so done its work, that they were beyond the power of human recognition, and beyond the power of human reconstruction. Oh, when we look around, what is the sight that meets the eye? Is it not identically the same as that which met the gaze of Ezekiel? I know there are some who seem to look at the world through a medium you and I know nothing about. I cannot say where they get their rose tint from, but to their eyes there is something of beauty and spiritual worth left in man. When man fell it was such a fall that he did not merely bruise himself: he broke his nature to pieces; and now sin has laid low the very framework of our being, and from head to foot there is not one part that has not suffered by the fatal fail The affections, the memory, all the powers of man, are lying prostrated. I said that it would have been difficult for anyone to recognise in those bones the men who once walked to battle. Am I going too far when I say that it must be almost as difficult for the angels, when they look down on earth, to recognise, in the specimens of humanity they see now, man as first he came from the Creator’s hands? And methinks that when they now look down and see some of the bloated drunkards that reel through our streets, the brazen-faced fallen ones that flaunt along our thoroughfares--when they look at the debauched and the debased specimens of mankind to be found on every hand, they say, “In these it is difficult to recognise man as he came from the Creator’s hands.” No oratory, no eloquence, no human power; no church machinery, can avail aught. “Come, O breath,” for the ease is too desperate for human wisdom or for human might,. If you look at the passage, you will see that Ezekiel was not allowed to shut his eyes to the true state of the case. “And the Lord caused me to pass by them round about.” He was not to look at them from a distance. In order to realise the fact, Ezekiel had to take one of the most ghastly walks that I can imagine ever mortal man took. Why? That he might realise the desperate condition. I am afraid there are a good many professing Christians living in a fool’s paradise. Talk to them about sin, and they say, “Oh, but these thinks are so sad; I would really rather not hear about them.” Sir, will your ignoring a fact alter it? Will your shutting your eyes to festering sores heal them? The Lord said to Ezekiel, “Go round about these bones, and take in the scene.” Ay, they are very many. Why, take London alone, and you have to say, “O God, they are very many.” London is more than a match for the church. We have to cry concerning the metropolis, “Come, O breath.” But let your eyes go farther afield, taking in our large provincial towns--our manufacturing centres. Oh, how the people hive--how they swarm in them! Take our Liverpools and our Manchesters. Go, ask concerning the history of some of those places, and you will have then to cry, “Come, O breath, for the case is desperate. The bones are many.” But stay, I am only talking about a Christian country now. You have to flit across the channel. How about the millions who are swathed in the darkness of superstition? Pass on farther yet to China. There you realise it. Do you know that every third man in the world is a Chinese? Do you know that every third woman in the world is a Chinese woman, and that every third child born into the world is a Chinese child? You may well say, “O God, they are very many.” “And they were very dry”--no marrow, no sap left, nothing in them that could be cultivated into life. And that is the case with the world at large. Now where is your power to meet the case? Surely this view of the surroundings must drive you to the conclusion that the only one power which can meet the case is the power from on high. “Come, O breath, for the bones are many, and the bones are dry.”

II. The deep need of the Spirit’s power is demonstrated in the scene that met the eye after the preaching. We have only looked at the valley as it was before Ezekiel began to preach. Now let us see how it appeared after his sermon.

1. I note, first, that Ezekiel did preach. Preaching always has been the great agency of God for the ingathering of souls; and none of us must stand aloof and say, “What is the good of preaching to sinners who are in such a condition as you have described?” God said unto Ezekiel, “Go, prophesy unto dry bones,” and he said, “I prophesied as I was commanded.” And the work of the Church of Christ is not to argue--not to ask the reason why, but to obey her Lord’s command, and send her hosts out in the great valley of dry bones, and preach everywhere. And do you observe what he preached about? He preached about the grand essentials. If you read through his short sermon to the bones, it was all about life. Ah, that was what they wanted. Ezekiel did not waste his time in talking about a number of things that could not possibly concern dry bones. He saw death: he preached life. He saw ruin: he preached remedy. Semi-political sermons to poor dry bones? Evening entertainments for dry bones? Magnificent essays, that smell of the oil of the midnight lamp but know nothing of unction, for dry bones? Ye Ezekiels of God in the valley of death, if you preach, preach the grand essentials--life, cleansing, God’s power unto salvation. Here is the theme to proclaim.

2. Now, notice, he did it, and what was the result? “There was a noise.” That is not always a sign of the presence of God. You cannot always say there is a revival going on because there is a considerable amount of excitement. If any man likes he can create a certain excitement. There may be noise and no power. The Lord was not in the earthquake that rent the rocks. The Lord was not in the wind that roared around the cave. The Lord was in the still small voice. You must not always say, “Oh, there was wonderful power, because there was a great noise.” More than that, there was a coming together. The bones all came bone to bone. Well, he would be a strange preacher who did not feel a sense of pleasure in seeing people brought round about him to hear the word. Thank God for great gatherings of people, because the first step towards salvation is generally the coming beneath, the sound of the word. But, let us remember, large congregations do not necessarily prove the presence of God. We may have crowds of people coming together, and yet no spiritual result. Then there was an external improvement. After Ezekiel’s sermon the valley did not look as ghastly as it did before. Instead of dislocated bones there were, first, skeletons. And then I read that on the bones there came flesh, and over the flesh there came skin. Do you see what Ezekiel’s preaching had done? It had made them look a great deal more respectable. Ay, preaching can do that apart from the power of the Holy Ghost. The drunkard may be led to give up his cup: the profane man may be led to forsake his oaths: the unchaste may be made to live a pure life, and homes may be revolutionised. There may be a very great deal of moral improvement, and yet there is need to add the sentence--you find it in the 8th verse, the latter clause--“but there was no breath in them.” They were better looking, but they were just as dead. And so you may have moral improvement without any spiritual life.

III. Let us, then, aptly to Ezekiel’s resort. It must have been a grand sight. Ezekiel had been preaching, and thus far he had been gazing at the bones, I suppose, in the same sort of way as I have been gazing upon this congregation, and he had seen a marvellous change. Now, do you see the man of God? He does not look at his congregation any longer. He has nothing more to do with them. He has finished his preaching. He turns to praying. I see him lift up his eyes to heaven, surrounded as he was with corpses, and he cries, “Come, O breath of God. Come and breathe upon these slain.” He had reached his boundary line. He had done all he could do. He preached as commanded: now he leaves results with the Spirit of God. Do you note with what wonderful faith he prayed? It is not the language of faltering belief mixed with unbelief. It is “Come, O breath of God.” He has no doubt that it will come. Why? Because he had a “Thus saith the Lord.” The Lord had told him to call upon the wind, and therefore he knew it would come. When you and I are asking for temporal mercies it will be well for us not to be too importunate. But when we come to ask for the Spirit’s power we can dare to be bold. Here is a promise: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask.” Church of God, ye need not tremble as you breathe the prayer. I want you to note one element of faith in Ezekiel which it will be well for us to follow. Do you see what unbounded faith he had in the power of the Spirit? Let me read the words to you. “Come, O breath,” and do what? “and breathe upon these slain, and they shall live.” We are almost ready to say, “What, Ezekiel, do you think it will be as easy for the Spirit of God to raise up all these corpses as it is for you to breathe? Yes,” Ezekiel would have said, “I may preach, and I may cry, and I may wear myself out. I can do nothing, but all the Holy Ghost has to do is just to breathe.” Oh the magnificent ease expressed in the sentence--“breathe upon these slain.” Mother, though that son of yours may have heard every evangelist and every preacher in England, the Holy Ghost has only to breathe and he shall live. Oh, let us get back to our simple faith in the mighty power of the Holy Ghost. I fear me that the Spirit is too often dishonoured--too often ignored. (A. G. Brown.)

“Come from the four winds, O breath!”

I. We are nothing without the Holy Spirit. We find that men are dead; what is wanted is that they shall be quickened; and we cannot quicken them. How, then, should this fact affect us? Because of our powerlessness, shall we sit still, doing nothing, and caring nothing? We cannot sit still: we do not believe that it was God’s intent that any truth should ever lead us into sloth: at any rate, it has not so led us; it has carried us in quite the opposite direction. Let us try to be as practical in this matter as we are in material things. We cannot rule the winds, nor create them. The sailor knows that he can neither stop the tempest nor raise it. What then? Does he sit still? By no means. He has all kinds of sails of different cuts and forms to enable him to use every ounce of wind that comes; and he knows how to reef or furl them in case the tempest becomes too strong for his barque. Though he cannot control the movement of the wind, he can use what it pleases God to send. Thus, though we cannot command that mighty influence which streams from the omnipotent Spirit of God; though we cannot turn it which way we will, for “the wind bloweth where it listeth,” yet we can make use of it; and in our inability to save men, we turn to God, and lay hold of His power.

1. By this fact, we must feel deeply humbled, emptied, and cut adrift from self. It will do us good to be very empty, to be very weak, to be very distrustful of self, and so to go about our Master’s work.

2. Next, because of our absolute need of the Holy Spirit, we must give ourselves to prayer before our work, in our work, and after our work.

3. Since everything depends upon the Spirit of God, we must be very careful to be such men as the Spirit of God can use. If any of us should become lazy, indolent, or self-indulgent, we cannot expect the Spirit, whose one end is to glorify Christ, to work with us. If we should become proud, domineering, hectoring, how could the gentle Dove abide with us? If we should become despondent, having little or no faith in what we preach, and not expecting the power of the Holy Spirit to be with us, is it likely that God will bless us?

4. Next, since we depend wholly upon the Spirit, we must be most anxious to use the Word, and to keep close to the truth in all our work for Christ among men. You cannot work for Christ except by the Spirit of Christ, and you cannot teach for Christ except you teach Christ; your word will have no blessing upon it, unless it be God’s Word spoken through your lips to the sons of men.

5. Again, since we are nothing without the Holy Spirit, we must avoid in our work anything which is not of Him. A headlong zeal even for Christ may leap into a ditch. What we think to be very wise may be very unwise; and where we deem that at least a little “policy” may come in, that little policy may taint the whole, and make a nauseous stench which God will not endure.

6. Moreover, we must be ever ready to obey the Holy Spirit’s gentlest monitions; by which I mean, the monitions which are in God’s Word, and also--but putting this in the second place--such inward whispers as He accords to those who dwell near to Him. When the Holy Ghost moves thee to give up such and such a thing, yield it instantly, lest you lose His presence; when He impels thee to fulfil such and such a duty, be not disobedient to the heavenly vision; and when on thy knees He seems to direct thee in prayer, go in that direction; or if He suggests to thee to praise God for such and such a favour, give thyself to thanksgiving. Yield thyself wholly to His guidance.

7. Once more: since, apart from the Spirit, we are powerless, we must value greatly every movement of His power. Look out for the first desire, the first fear! Be glad of anything happening to your people that looks as if it were the work of the Holy Spirit; and, if you value Him in His earlier works, He is likely to go on to do more and more, till at last He will give the breath, and the slain host shall arise, and become an army for God.

II. We may so act as to have the Holy Spirit.

1. If we want the Holy Spirit to be surely with us, to give us a blessing, we must, in the power of the Spirit, realise the scene in which we are to labour. Do you want to save the people in the slums? Then you must go into the slums. Do you want to have sinners broken down under a sense of sin? You must be broken down yourself; at least, you must get near to them in their brokenness of heart; and be able to sympathise with them.

2. Next, if the Holy Spirit is to be with us, we must speak in the power of faith. If preaching is not a supernatural exercise, it is a useless procedure.

3. In addition to this, if we desire to have the Spirit of God with us, we must prophesy according to God’s command. God will bless the prophesying that He commands, and not any other; so we must keep clear of that which is contrary to His Word, and speak the truth that He gives to us to declare.

4. Notice, next, that if we would have the Spirit of God with us, we must break out in vehemency of desire. “Come from the four winds,” etc. A man of no desire gets what he longs for; and that is nothing at all.

5. Then, if we would have more of the power of the Spirit of God with us, we must see only the Divine purpose, the Divine power, and the Divine working.

III. We would speak hopefully to our hearers.

1. You who are not yet quickened by the Divine life, or are afraid you are not, we would exhort you to hear the Word of the Lord.

2. Next, we would remind you of your absolute need of life from the Spirit of God. Put it in what shape you like, you cannot be saved except you are born again; and the new birth is not a matter within your own power.

3. But we would have you note what the Holy Spirit has done for others. Say to yourself, “If the Holy Spirit could make a saint out of such a sinner as that, surely He can make a saint out of me.”

4. May I go a little further, and say that, we would have you observe carefully what is done in yourself? You have put away many things from you that were once a pleasure to you, and now you take a delight in many things which you once despised. There is some hope in that, though it may be nothing more than the sinews coming on the bones, and the flesh upon the sinews. God takes such a delight in His work, that, having begun it, He completes it.

5. Furthermore, we would remind you that faith in Jesus is a sign of life. “He that believeth on Him is not condemned”; wherefore be of good cheer.

6. We beg you not to be led aside to the discussion of difficulties. Leave the difficulties; there will be time enough to settle them when we get to heaven; meanwhile, if life comes through Jesus Christ, let us have it, and have done with nursing our doubts.

7. Further, we would have you long for the visitation of God, the Holy Spirit. Join with us in the prayer, “Come, Holy Spirit, come with all Thy power; come from the four winds, O breath!” One wind will not do, it must come from all quarters. Be willing to have the Holy Spirit as He wills to come. Let Him come as a north wind, cold and cutting, or as a south wind, sweet and melting. Say, “Come, from any of the four winds, O breath! only come.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Spiritual revival

I. The prayer. “Come from the four winds.”

1. It is an expression of deep need. Prayer was something more than a cry of “self-relief,” such as animals utter. The scene throughout the valley is weird and gruesome--a vast charnel house, a call for earnest supplication amid the stillness and motionless state of the unwakened dead--of supplication for the breath of life.

2. It was an expression, too, of hope. Despair is dumb. It might seem impossible to men, but the Divine command had gone forth, “Say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come”; and the Divine command is not in vain.

3. It was the expression, too, of longing desire, and desire is the hand of the soul which reaches out after that which it thirsts for. It is a disposition for receiving Divine gifts, After the Ascension, ten days were allowed to elapse before the coming of the Spirit, thereby calling out and sharpening the desire of the apostles for the Divine afflatus.

II. To whom addressed.

1. Not to the natural wind. Of what we used to call the “four elements”--fire, air, earth, water--three are symbols of the Holy Spirit. Earth alone is too material to represent Him. It is of the Spirit our Lord spoke (Luke 12:49). In the vision of “holy waters,” Ezekiel depicts the outpouring of the Spirit. And in the conversation with Nicodemus, Christ compared the operations of the Spirit to the wind (John 3:8).

2. It is the Holy Spirit depicted by “breath” and “wind” in this vision. In relation to Christ He is the breath. Christ “breathed on” the apostles, “and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22). And in regard to man; for God breathed into man’s nostrils “the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).

3. The prayer runs, “Come from the four winds, O breath.” This betokens two things--first, the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit, to use the language of divinity, His immensity, the four winds representing all directions, all space; secondly, that, though omnipresent, He could “come,” and be present in a new way.

4. Through the Son of Man, through the Incarnation, and all the mysteries of the Redeemer’s life, culminating in His glorification and intercession at the Father’s right hand, the breath of life was given to the race, which, through sin, had become like the dry, dead bones. There were the two “prophesyings,” the two appeals to a world “dead in trespasses and sins,” the outer one, of the visible Son of Man; the inward, of the invisible Spirit of God, the one preparing the way for the other, which was the result of it.

III. For what offered.

1. “Breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” Observe the influence is calm. There are times of violence, as with the natural wind: “the sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind” (Acts 2:2); or again, when “the place was shaken where they were assembled together” (Acts 4:31); but, as a rule, God works in stillness. There is always something unusual which accompanies “beginnings.” So here. But, according to the ordinary laws of grace, the Spirit’s operations are conducted with tranquillity.

2. But the influence is potent. It brought about a wondrous restoration and transformation. Where there had been death, stillness, insensibility, now there is life, movement, and consciousness. It does what nothing else has the power to do--raises a sinner from the death of sin.

3. The resurrection was

(1) complete. They “lived and stood up.” They did not remain as valetudinarians, in a recumbent posture, waiting for some further access of vitality. They stood up, ready for action.

(2) It was corporate. Whatever may be the individual operations of the Spirit in man and man, he is restored as a part of “a life larger than his own”; he is by the very fact of his restoration a member of a body, a member of a Divine society in which the Spirit of life dwells. He has around him, on all sides of him, others with the same thrill of life which has chased away the icy grasp in which death had bound him.

(3) It was aggressive. “An exceeding great army.” The Church was to go forth and attack the strongholds of sin or false beliefs, and to conquer the world. Every member of it, if true to his calling, must be animated with a missionary spirit.

4. The vision, therefore, is a mystical picture of the work of the Church in the world, imparting life to the “dry bones” of corrupt nature, and to the nations who were before without God and without hope (Ephesians 2:12).

5. Further, it has ever been regarded as a representation of the general resurrection in the Last Day, when the Spirit’s work as “the Giver of life” shall be extended to the body (Romans 8:11).

IV. Lessons.

1. To pray with a sense of deep need, confident hope, earnest desire.

2. To pray to God the Holy Ghost. “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,” etc.

3. To examine ourselves, whether our spiritual resurrection bears the marks above mentioned.

4. To believe in the eleventh article of the Creed, “the resurrection of the body,” and to keep the body in temperance, soberness, and chastity, in view of that event. (The Thinker.)

The gilt of the Spirit

What in its grand sum total was the moral condition of the world till Christ lived and died and rose again, and ascending up on high from thence gave gifts unto men? Contemplate that world, not as clothed in that false glamour and deceitful glory with which art and poetry invested it, but as it must have presented itself to eyes purer than to behold iniquity, contemplate it, I say, exactly on that Pentecostal day, which we may justly call the birthday of the Church;--only one small people upon the whole earth preserving the knowledge, the faith, the worship of the true God; and they only using this knowledge to sin more guiltily, because against clearer light and knowledge, than the other nations of the world; their hands still red with the blood of Him whom they should have welcomed as their King and their God;--the rest of the world “wholly given to idolatry”; and with idolatry to what strange and hideous forms of evil! Contemplate for an instant the gladiatorial shows of Rome, men killing one another to make sport for lookers on; by tens and by hundreds “butchered to make a Roman holiday.” Contemplate, but with hasty and averted eye, the strange lusts of Greece, men glorying in their shame, and boasting of wickednesses which one would have thought no darkness would have seemed to them dark enough to hide. Then, when all things were thus at the worst, the Son of God was manifested in the flesh, lived a life of perfect obedience, made on His Cross a perfect offering for all the sins, past, present, and to come, of all mankind; rose again, went up on high, and, being exalted at the right hand of God, shed abroad His gifts upon men, even the rebellious. And when they that were ambassadors of His grace, at His bidding began to prophesy, immediately there was a great shaking among the dry bones in the valley of death, everywhere a mighty agitation; life once more was in conflict with and overcoming death! and as the breath of God passed first over the Jewish Church, and then over the Gentile world, and breathed upon those slain, multitudes came up out of their graves, the graves which sin had dug for them,--three thousand souls, we know, on the day of Pentecost, were the first-fruits of a far mightier harvest,--and all stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army of living men, made now by that quickening breath of the Holy Ghost alive unto God. And ever as these messengers of Christ, and such as in succession took up the message from their lips, the same effects followed; the Holy Ghost was given; and multitudes, alienated hitherto from the life of God, dead in their sins, lived to holiness and to God. Sad it is to think that there should have been ever pause or remission in such a blessed work of reanimation as this. But that such pause or remission has been we cannot deny. Death reigns not now everywhere, as once; but yet, oh! how much death, how much that has refused and is still refusing to live. Not to speak of those whom the false religions of the world, Hindu and Buddhist and Mohammedan, have slain, nor yet of the votaries and victims of a thousand meaner superstitions and idolatries, is not Christendom itself a spectacle at this day which well might make angels weep? For surely the slain in it are many--those whom superstition has slain, and those whom infidelity has slain--the slain by intemperance, covetousness, uncleanness, pride, and a thousand other weapons of the enemy;--who could number up their multitudes? Pray, ye who have any feeling sense of what the Church of the living God ought to be, terrible in its serried ranks as an army with banners, and what it is, resembling as it does only too nearly a valley of dry bones--pray, as did the prophet of old, “Come from the four winds,” etc. And as prayer is a mockery, unless work is added to it, add in one shape or another your work to your prayers. (Archbishop Trench.)