Christian Hope                                                                                  4/29/45

 

Scripture: (Read Ephesians 2: 1-14)

 

Text:  (See Ezekiel 37: 1-3)

 

“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, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many of them in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.  And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?  And I said in answer, O Lord, thou knowest.”  [Ezekiel 37: 1-3]

 

These are words of Ezekiel, a prophet sent of God for the hope and assurance of the people of Israel who were exiled in Babylon.  These people were far from home, their homes had indeed been plundered and destroyed by Babylonian conquerors. Exiled in a distant land, without hope of getting out of it, the Hebrew people were in despair.  What hope could they have?

 

Homes destroyed, their city burned, they had seen enemy arrows fly as thickly as a cloud, shot by an enemy that knew no mercy and no appeasement.  Death had come to neighbor and to kinfolk.  Destruction and death had found every corner and stone of the city, just as it has in these recent times found the ruined cities of Europe and of the Far East.  The city wall, behind which they defended themselves, had been broken down.  Hosts of the Babylonian enemy had poured through the streets of the doomed city, pillaging and killing.

 

Those who were left alive were herded out of the smoking ruins of what had been their town.  As they came through the broken walls through the valley outside, they saw the bodies of the slain where they had been thrown by their conquerors - and there were a great many of them there in the open valley.

 

As they passed by, these survivors thought of themselves as dead, and worse than dead.  From now on, there could be no Israel.  They were to be scattered in little groups among the conquering peoples in the belief that they would be absorbed, and would lose the very character of their nationality.

 

It was to these defeated, scattered, exiled, broken people Ezekiel’s message came.  And the message was one of spiritual resurrection.  In his mighty vision, the prophet saw the return of the Lord God to the temple in Jerusalem.  He saw the restoration of the Hebrew people.  He said: “I dreamed that God carried me out in the spirit and showed me that great valley outside the ruined walls of Jerusalem, filled with the bones of the slain.  In my dream, the Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ and I answered, Lord thou knowest!  Then he said, ‘Speak to these bones and command them to come together, and command flesh to come upon them.’  Then I spoke as I was commanded, and there came a rustling among the dry bones, and they came together and knit bone to bone, and flesh came upon them and sinews, and they lay all breathless on the valley floor.  Then the spirit of God spoke to the four winds, and they came and breathed upon the slain, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”

 

Well, we may say, “What a senseless vision! like running a motion picture film backward in the projector for amusement!  It may tickle our fancy for a moment, but how can it help the people?”  Remember always, that these Near East Orientals used imagination, figures of speech, picturesque talk, pointed stories, and used them freely, to bring home a truth.  And this was not just idle musing; it was a prophecy, a vivid declaration of a truth that since became reality in fact.

 

Israel - poor, broken, defeated, scattered Israel - possessed one thing no conqueror succeeded in taking away.  That was a persisting faith in God.  As it was then among them, so let it be now among all who have known themselves children of the Most High!

 

I suppose we should be foolish to assume that all the Israelites of that day had faith in God.  This prophecy may have sounded like senseless dreaming to many a hopeless Jew; but some of them did believe in it.  Their belief was strong enough to be a faith, and that faith turned the tide for the restoration of Israel from exile - for they did return to Jerusalem.

 

There were many who did not believe, before or after Ezekiel had spoken.  They simply had no hope.  The facts which they could see were the only facts they knew.  They overlooked the greatest fact of all - one which, to this day, is often overlooked to the confounding of man’s little plans - the fact of faith.

 

They never guessed the strength of a faith.  They knew the wreckage of conquest; they understood the bitterness of trouble; they knew that sin of self, and ancestors, had brought this upon them.  But it seemed too late to do anything about it.  They couldn’t say, back through the years to their own youthful selves and to their fathers, “Change your ways!”  It was just too late.  Piled up sins had had their inevitable results.  Jerusalem was destroyed; the bones of the slain bleached in the sun; and that former life would never live again!  “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (picture language again).  And even the children had eaten their share!  So that was that.

 

There is a powerful temptation which overwhelms men and women, in great inescapable disaster.  It is the temptation to give up, to despair, to give in to what seems inevitable, to accept the standards of paganism and to depart from the standards of faith.

 

“Why struggle to keep alive a dead nation?  Why keep God’s law?  Why try to keep up to the high standards of righteousness which the prophets proclaimed and the Savior reaffirmed?  Why even worship God - isn’t he gone?  Why not just give in to the pagan world, accept its standards?

 

All these questions beset the leaders of Israel in Ezekiel’s day.  They tempt hosts of people of our day.  Perhaps the standards of God are just too high, and out-of-reach.  Maybe the doctrine that might makes right is the only one that will work.  Possibly cruelty and hatred and oppression are things that people understand, so why not let those things determine the issues?

 

And as for one’s self - what is to be gained by adherence to all of the ten commandments?  Do they not represent a stiffer standard than a man can meet?  After all, we’re human and we even like some of our weakness - at least for a time.

 

This is the kind of temptation that fell upon Israel - and that casts its veil over thousands of hearts in the 20th century of our Lord.  Many are tired, uprooted, disappointed, disillusioned, blown and bent as a reed or even wrenched and torn like a tree blown in the hurricane.  Their eyes have beheld terrible things.  They are fearful and apprehensive.

 

The dreadful question confronts all of us - “Shall we accept the rule of evil because evil seems for the moment to be stronger than righteousness?  Shall we knuckle under because of the power of some oppressor, whether that power be some foreign army or some neighborhood social compulsion?  Shall we be content with lesser gods because the one true God seems to have allowed hardship to fall upon us?”

 

There is still that spark of the divine in us that says “No!  The moral requirements of God are high and hard to live up to; but they are so because they are true; because they are worthwhile.”

 

And God can make even the dry bones of a dead hope to live again!  He has done it times without number!  Israel saw a restoration of its home and people.  Men and women have been redeemed from sin and degradation in every age, and in our own.  When a penitent, patient, trustful, hopeful people turn honestly, with whole-hearted sincerity to God and his righteousness, they are redeemed to noble life.  The dry bones of man’s power are helpless to save us from wretchedness.   But the power of God is still greater than any earth has seen.

 

Our day needs strong-hearted, courageous, faithful men and women more than anything else.  Not just men of muscle-flexing strength, but men of unshakable inner courage and boundless hope.  Not just ships and trains and aircraft and munitions and nuclear weapons and radar and dams for power and factories and human organization - but God-inspired character.  Without that character, the power of this world will, and does, drive us straight toward destruction.  With it, our powers may be harnessed to his power.

 

A diesel locomotive may move, fast and far, in a few hours, more goods than a man can move with his two hands in years.  Those goods may bring life and comfort and tools for more living to thousands of consumers.  All this if there is a living soul - a man - in the cab, directing, controlling, driving that locomotive.  Without that soul, the locomotive, power running wild, may well plough into, and destroy, in a few moments, untold life and goods.

 

Our age of mechanical and organizational power will benefit us and all the world only if there be a soul in the cab - not just an erring human soul, but the very spirit of God.  Without that directing soul there comes swift and terrible destruction.  Believe this: our civilization, so great in human eyes, depends entirely upon the degree to which its powers are placed in the hand of God and his righteousness!

 

We Americans have been a people of great idealism.  I think, in spite of the world’s carnage and hell, that we still are.  But our idealism has sometimes been more of sentimentalism than true, applicable idealism.  We have sometimes talked of the nobility of man, and trusted in it, while man was woefully and sinfully ignoble.  We have forgotten to bow before the altar of God’s presence and implore him, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”  We are given to theories that look rosy in a world of wolfish thinking and jungle morality.

 

Our sentimentalism tastes the dregs of bitter, disillusioning disappointment when hell breaks loose under our noses.  Too many lost their faith in God and man.  They have expected too much of man and now they expect too little of God.  Let us remember that angels are not made overnight - not by attendance at church one Sunday, a month of Sundays, a year of Sundays - but by a lifetime of consecration and penitence and service to the will of God.

 

The peace of this war-weary world will not be built in a week at San Francisco, nor in a year, nor in many years.  If a sane and right start has been made, we should be profoundly and joyously grateful to God, but the years ahead will have to see the continued, faithful, consecrated toil of the peacemakers if peace is to be built.  It is a lifetime job and concern of every one of us to continue to support the building of peace just as surely as it had been our duty in this generation to do our part in prosecuting a war - I think more surely, for if peace should fail again, the guilt will lie with every one of us who may have arrived with too little, too late.

 

Shall the precious dead of battle have died in vain, or shall they live?  They shall live, but through God’s power, not our own.

 

Though much be lost in precious lives, in treasure and in the terrible intangibles, all is not lost, if we but turn to God.  If there is to be a new and better life, it must come from God - we have nowhere else to turn.

 

We must proclaim not man’s peace, but God’s peace.  We must preach and teach the holy gospel.  We must hold it up so that people may see it - not us but the gospel!  We must keep the faith.  We must pray for the strength to stand against the frenzy of the storm.  Against all hardships we must seek the redemption of hearts and souls.  We must affirm and reaffirm, even with life itself, the lordship of our Master.

 

If we do this, our churches will have remembered their holy calling; and because of our faith, our civilization may live.  If we are faithful and true to God, he will give peace.  Let us remember his word - “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts!”

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Dates and places delivered:

            Wisconsin Rapids, April 29, 1945

            Wisconsin Rapids, July 1, 1956