Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the prophet Ezekiel, chapter
36, and reading from our text, verse 37. Verse 37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will
yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it
for them. I will increase them with men
like a flock. Ezekiel 36 and verse 37. Ezekiel is prophesying at a time
when the children of Israel are in captivity in Babylon. So we would think of the word
that is sent forth here, their literal position, where they
are. They're far off from their own
land, they are under a heathen king, They're in captivity. They are under the chastening
hand of the Lord. The Lord has brought them into
this position of captivity. The situation in their own land,
in their own land, the temple, is destroyed, it is laid bare,
it is laid waste, and the Lord has completely destroyed the
place that was their habitation. The walls of the city are broken
down, and even if they were to return, they would find it as
Nehemiah did, and as Ezra did, as Rabbah did, all broken down
and destroyed and need much building up again. So they look from their
place of captivity and they look back to where they came from
and that is all in ruins. And then you think of the condition
that they're in spiritually for many years. before, even over
a hundred years before they were brought into captivity, they
themselves had defiled their land with their idols, with their
abominations, with their wickedness, with their sins. They had provoked
the Lord to anger and it was their own sin, their own hearts
that were wrong and not right before the Lord their God. And so their condition of the
people also needed to be addressed and needed to be put right. And how many times we may see
this and feel this in our own souls, may feel to be under the
chastening hand of God in captivity, We may look and see from where
we have fallen, and we can see what a solemn state and condition
we are in. We can realise and know that
why we have been brought into this condition is because of
our own sin, and that even when we are restored, we need that
set right and put right. Otherwise, even when outward
things are made right, then we shall still go on the same. You
can't help feeling that this was the feelings of Ezra and
those that were with him in his day, some 78 years after the
children of Israel had been brought back from captivity, and they
realised that they were still marrying strange wives, they're
still walking in idolatry, and they said, are these not the
same things? for which we were brought into
captivity in the very beginning. And so they viewed themselves
deliable for the same judgments and same hand of the Lord to
be upon them. So we have the situation for
which the prophet gives the word of the Lord and sends it to the
captives and sends it to the children of Israel. And it is
full of the promises of the Lord, even to his people. He promises
to bring them from the heathen, and when he does that, then he
will cleanse them from their iniquities, as is set forth in
verse 33. In the day that I shall have
cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell
in the cities, and the ways shall be builded. And the promises
that flow before those verses address the spiritual needs of
the people as well, and that the Lord will not leave that
untouched, but his promises extend to that. Spiritual blessings
for the people. What is made evident in this
chapter as well is the reason for the Lord doing this. And
this should also be a real encouragement to us. He is not doing it because
of Israel's sake or even for his people's sake, but he's doing
it for his own name's sakes. He says in verse 32, not for
your sakes do I this saith the Lord God, be it known unto you,
Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel."
And so if there are those of you this morning and you're looking
for a reason in yourself that the Lord will bless you, or seeing
many reasons in you why the Lord does not bless you, then the
Lord says to us through Ezekiel here, that the reason for His
blessings and promises are not in us, but in Himself. It's for His sake, for His honour
and glory, for His great name's sake. And that is a wonderful
thing to bear in mind when we are far off from the Lord, under
His chastening, and when we're in captivity. We are to look
unto the Lord, we are to look unto the Lord Jesus Christ, We
look unto him that the Lord instructs us that we are to ask in his
name and to make our petitions in his name and that it is for
his sake that he will bless us and answer us. And so we have
again the key, and this is where our text is, the key for these
blessings, is in prayer. And as yet, when Ezekiel is prophesying,
they have not yet made this prayer, they're not yet asking. And so
the word is, thus saith the Lord, I will yet for this being quiet
of by the house of Israel. And there's hope even in that,
because he tells us here that the secret, the key, is prayer. And he doesn't say, well, you
just, you have not prayed, you have not asked, But really, it
is held out, they will get asked. There will come a time, they
will ask, and they will seek, and these things will be done.
I will yet for this be inquired of, by this house of Israel,
by those in captivity, by those that I have dealt with in this
way, they shall pray and they shall ask." The key then is prayer
and we think of how it is recorded in the book of Daniel course
at this same time in captivity and this is coming to the end
of that time when we read in Daniel chapter 9 and verse 2,
in the first year of his reign, that is the reign of Tiraeus
the son of Ahasuerus, in the first year of his reign I Daniel
understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word
of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish
seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And then we read
this, And I said my face unto the Lord God, to seek my prayer
and supplication with fasting, and sackcloth and ashes. He makes
prayer, makes confession unto the Lord. We know that Daniel
was a praying man constantly. He did not cease to pray when
the law of the land said that he had to only pray to the king
and not to any other god. He still continued to pray unto
the God of Israel. And so he was a man of prayer.
And yet this specific thing, when it comes to the time for
the Lord to bring it about and to bring them back after the
70 years, then Daniel is moved to pray for this and to acquire
of the Lord for this thing. And may we remember the importance
that God has put, yes, God has put on prayer as the key. to unlock the blessings that
already he has in store and the provision in the Lord Jesus Christ
and for his own honour and glory. We ought to always pray, but
we are to notice when he particularly lays it upon us to pray for specific
things and to take hold of his promises and to plead those promises
and to beg of the Lord to bestow them upon us. for those prayers
the Lord gives to his dear people. And it is a blessed time when
we discern a difference to our prayers. We're not to just think,
well, we only need to pray when we feel moved in prayer. We have
to seek to pray. As the Lord's servants in preaching,
instant, in season and out of season, men ought always to pray
and not to faint. But those of us who have walked
this path have known some very special times where the Lord
has moved us in prayer, where the Lord has so laid it upon
us we've felt such a spirit of prayer, and the Lord has then
been pleased to answer and it has been that forerunner of wonderful
deliverances by the Lord. And so we have this situation
of Israel that is set before us here. But these things are
written and they're laid up in store for gospel days, for the
days where we are now, when we have not just literal Israel,
but we have a spiritual Israel, we have God's dear people, who
also sin against the Lord, who also are chastened and are also
brought into captivity, who need their hearts restored and their
hearts changed as well. And these blessings then may
be applied in a gospel sense and to the people of God now. And it is in this way that I
want to look at this word in three points. Firstly, the condition
God's people are found in. We mentioned it concerning Ezekiel's
day, but now in a broader head, the condition God's people are
found in. And then secondly, the promises
that are laid out for them, and we'll look at those promises
as those that are in this chapter. And then thirdly, the key to
the promise, which is prayer. I will yet, for this being quiet
of by the house of Israel, to do it for them. I will increase
them with men like a flock. So firstly, the condition that
God's dear people are found in. I want to briefly consider three
conditions that they are found in. Firstly, it is the condition
that they are in by nature. God finds them in this way, born
in sin and shapen in iniquity, lost and ruined in the fall,
dead in trespasses and in sins. It is a condition that all of
those who are called are never to forget how the Lord first
found them, passed by them when they were in their blood and
bid them live. And Paul, when writing to the
Romans, he uses the remembrance of what God blessed them with
when they were yet dead in sins as a reason why they should be
more greatly encouraged now that they are quickened. If, when
we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of his
Son, how much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved through his
life. It is the... a work of the Lord
that begins with a sinner when he is an enemy to God and alienated
by wicked works. When his languages depart from
us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. And yet the Lord
makes a people willing in the day of his power. He begins that
work, and the great principle and blessing of the scriptures
is that where the Lord begins, he will not forsake. He will
carry on that work. He will finish it. And we see
that with literal Israel, that Lord did not forsake them, that
even though he brought them into captivity, yet he brought them
out and he blessed them and the promised Messiah did come unto
them. So we are to consider that all
of God's children, and especially when we are quickened, we look
back to see what we were and not to forget that the Lord had
mercy upon us. When we did not even seek his
grace, we didn't ask for it, we didn't consider it at all,
and yet the Lord opened our blind eyes and the Lord caused us to
walk in his ways and quickened us into life. And we are then
to consider the condition of God's people beginning what they
are by nature. But then there is a condition
in backsliding. Again, with the children of Israel,
we see how much they went back from the way that God had set
them in. And then individual persons like
King Solomon, the Lord had appeared unto him twice and he blessed
him. He'd warned him about being joined
to idols, joined to the ways of the heathen, and yet he married
him strange wives and worshipped their gods and helped them in
building their temples and their idols. And for that reason, God
dealt with him, dealt with his house, separated the ten tribes,
And the Lord will chasten his children that backslide. His children do backslide, and
their very condition, even before the Lord corrects them, is a
deplorable condition. And it may be this morning, you
look at your own state and condition, you say, I have backslidden in
my own sins, they chasten me. our very backslidings bring about
further trials and further troubles. You know, if we do not improve
on and use the means of grace, we neglect prayer, we misuse
our time, the very things that we have done, they themselves
return upon us and we reap what we ourselves have sown by the
very things that we have neglected, The very things that we've done,
they return upon our own head. Our very sins correct us. And so the backsliding state
of a child of God is like a slippery slope that gets more and more,
worse and worse, further and further from the Lord. And the
children of Israel were like this. The many calls to repentance,
the calls to turn, And they turned not, their backslidings got worse
and worse. The condition of God's people
in backsliding then is known by the Lord and is provided for
in the gospel and there's hope. There's hope for one that is
dead in sins, that is the Lord. There's hope for one that has
backslidden, that is the Lord. And then there's the condition
when the Lord takes them in hand and begins to chastise them. In Hebrews chapter 12 we read,
Therefore no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous
but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby. That chastening
The children of Israel were under here. While they're in their
own land, they defiled it. So the Lord said, I'll take you
out of your land. You willingly walked after idols
and now make it so that you don't have any choice. And away you
go under the chasing hand of God. And the godly in that land were
chastened along with the ungodly. Daniel amongst them and his friends
were in captivity, though in those things they served the
Lord. Those things that are on us as
a nation at this present time, they come and they touch those
that serve the Lord and those that do not. The backsliding
as well as those that are close to the Lord, and it is the voice
of the Lord. upon the land and towards his
people. It is a chastening, and chastening
is not judgment, but it is that which is designed to bring a
people back to the Lord and to acknowledge his hand and to serve
him and obey him. The condition of God's people
in the land, in this land, those that serve the Lord, we gather
in our churches, but how have we been? How cold, how careless,
how indifferent, how lacking of zeal for the Lord, how not
diligent over personal holiness and uprightness. And these things
the Lord brings, wave upon wave, as it were, and returning us
now again, not exactly, but under the rules and regulations that
we were back in April. And may we hear the rod and who
has appointed it. I greatly fear that there are
those that will be rising up against it. And instead of seeing
the Lord's hand, they just see man. And they see, as it were,
man in conflict with God. We do mourn that our rulers do
not acknowledge the hand of God, nor do they acknowledge the importance
of worship, of repentance, of seeking the Lord. But we do know
that more shall be required of those that have more. And those
of us who know the ways of the Lord, those of us who know the
way of salvation, then it behoves us that we examine ourselves
at these times and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
There's no greater comfort for a soul to actually see the plummet
in the hand of the heavenly Gerobbo have a view that the Lord is
in control and he who has appointed the virus has appointed those
in authority over us and those things that are done are not
done by chance but done by the Lord's appointing hand and so
We do so need to do, not like the children of Israel when first
brought under the hand of Babylon, those that were left in the land,
they rebelled against the king of Babylon. And in doing so,
they were rebelling against the Lord. They thought they were
just rebelling against a heathen king that was having a jurisdiction
over their land. but he was the Lord's servant
and they were really kicking and rebelling against the Lord. And we need to be very, very
careful at this time that we ourselves are not kicking and
rebelling against the Lord, but rather to fall before him and
to acknowledge our sin and acknowledge the condition of our souls. This, our first point, the condition
God's people are found in. And in this time in our nation
and today, what condition are we found in? Personally, as a
nation, as churches, is it a healthy position? Is it a good position? Is it a God-glorifying position? Are we what we would be? How
shall we give an account before the Lord? Where are our eyes? Are our eyes searching, trying
our own ways? Or are we too busy searching
and trying the ways of others and those of our rulers? Are
we doing that which the Lord has bidden us to do? Or are we
trying to wrench out of the hands of those who have that authority
to do and to do their work for them. And so it is a point to
search our own condition, our own hearts, and where we are
found. And the message here is not only
a way to be searched, but also to find hope and to find a promise
and a reason for the Lord to bless us and appear for us. the condition God's people are
found in. Secondly then, the promises that
are laid up for them. I want to say right at the beginning
that all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Right at the beginning in Genesis,
in the fall of man, It was given the promise of the seed of the
woman that should bruise the serpent's head. It was a promise
of Christ. And every other promise that
follows on from that is bound up with Christ. If Christ had
not promised, if he was not to come, then there should be no
promises, no blessings, no expectation of deliverance from the fall
or from any other condition. The promises are all yea and
amen in Christ Jesus. We're not to lose sight of that
blessed provision of the eternal Son of God to come unto this
world to be made flesh and to dwell among us, to partake of
our nature, sin accepted, and that he should then live a perfect
and obedient life. work out a righteousness that
should be given to those that should believe on his name, and
that he should then obediently obey his father, and to be submissive
unto the powers that be in his day. True, he said to Pilate,
thou couldst have no power against me, except it be given you from
above. But that power was given him
from above. He had power to release him,
power to crucify him, and the power was given that he should
crucify him. And in that, it was a willingness
on our Lord's part that he should lay down his life and take it
again. But the path that he walked was
in submission, led as a lamb to the slaughter. The sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. And he willingly
endured the wrath of God, not for his sin, but for his people's
sin. And as he was a sin-bearer, he
bore that wrath of God. And the promises are all in Christ. What he has accomplished at Calvary
to endure that wrath of God and be a wrath-ending sacrifice so
that for His sake, for His own namesake, the Lord should bless
His people and deliver His people. If there should be a deliverance
from our condition by nature, our condition by backsliding,
our condition under the chastening hand of God, The reason for deliverance
and the hope of deliverance is only in the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the promises that are made that are bound up in Him. And so the promises that I bring
before you now, those that are specified in this chapter, we
view them in the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 24, The Lord promises
that he would take them from among the heathen and gather
them out of all countries, bring them again into their own land. This was literally fulfilled. The Lord has accomplished that.
And our Lord Jesus Christ was brought forth in his time. Also,
we have that further fulfilled again in our time, where Israel
again brought to their own land. But we view that in a spiritual
way. God separates his people from
the people of all lands. He separates them unto himself. Come ye apart and be ye separate. Touch not the unclean thing,
I will receive you. You shall be my sons and my daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty. One of the greatest blessings
of calling by great deliverance from a condition of nature is
to be separated unto him. Let us go out unto him without
the camp, bearing his reproach. The Lord marking out his people
from the people of all other lands. And their times of backsliding
have often been when they've been friendly with the world,
joined with the world, joined with their idols, and that separation
not be marked. So the Lord's promise is to restore
that distinctive mark of the people of God, that they are
God's people chosen out of every nation, kindred and tongue. And
he separates them again unto himself. And he promises to do
that and to bring them again to be that peculiar people, a
blessed people that are the people of the Lord, a redeemed people. So he says that he will do this
and promises to bring them again to really possess that land,
those blessings that the Lord has given them and promised them.
Then we have in verse 25, that he will sanctify them, that he
will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from
all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. The blessings of the Gospel are to deliver a people from
sin. May we always remember that,
that we are not saved to sin, but saved from sin, and that
sin shall not have dominion over us, but that we should be a holy
people unto the Lord and to serve the Lord and to fear the Lord. And so the Lord has promised
here that he will sanctify and he will cleanse and you will
make us a holy people. Then we have in verse 26, that
he will give a new heart. The Lord's work is a hard work,
it's not just in the head, it's not just superficial, and when
we have become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, it
is the Lord's promise that he will give us a softened heart.
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give
you a heart of flesh. It is a blessed promise for all
that feel a hard, unfeeling heart and that feel that because of
sin their heart has been more and more hardened so that they
don't feel it, they're not troubled by it. And it may be some of
you are like that. You tremble because you say,
I don't really see sin as it really is. And I don't recoil
against it. And if I'm really honest, I don't
really hate sin as I really should hate sin. And you wonder at how
seared your conscience is and how hard your heart is and wonder
how there can be ever a turning and are restoring from such a
position. But here is the promise, that
the Lord will give a new heart to his people. Then he shall
also give them a new spirit, verse 26 and verse 27, a new
spirit will I put within you, a new, put my spirit within you,
cause you to walk in my statutes. It's a blessed thing. where we
have the Spirit of the Lord. The Lord said to his disciples
at one time, you know not what spirit ye are of, but to be blessed
with the Spirit of the Lord. The promise is that the Lord
will come and you dwell in his people and walk in them. And
really the Spirit never does leave his people. I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world. But he does withdraw
his sweet influences, and he does withdraw the sense of his
presence with them. He says, I'll return unto my
place. They were in their distress. They will soon turn unto me and
acknowledge their transgressions. And so sometimes his chastening
is just a withdrawing of his influence and his power. Dear
David, after his adultery and murder and brought into repentance,
he says, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me. The Spirit had not departed from
him, but he says, take it not from me. He valued the Spirit
and he wanted the joy of the Lord's salvation again. Then there is in verse 28, a
spirit of adoption. You shall be my people and I
will be your God. The spirit bearing witness with
our spirit that we are the children of God. When we are backslidden,
when we are brought into a chastened state of condition, very often
we lose the assurance that we are the children of God. Yet
in the very chastening, the Lord said that it is children that
are chastened. And if you be without chastisement,
then are ye bastards and not sons. The Lord chasteneth every
son whom he receiveth. But he shall give, and specifically
in verse 28, this spirit of adoption. You shall be my people and I
will be your God. a two-way thing, the people of
God laying claim like dear Thomas, my Lord and my God, and the Lord
saying of his people, I ascend unto your father and my father,
your God, my God. And those that were not a people
are made the people of God, and those that did not have the assurance
and comfort are brought to have that assurance and that comfort. And we have in verse 29 the saving
from our uncleannesses. Some of those things that cling
most to us by nature and the cause of the wrath of God upon
a people is uncleanness. And the Lord says that he was
saved even from that. And then there's the fruitfulness
in the latter part of verse 29 and verse 30, the Lord is promising
fruitfulness. I will multiply fruit of the
tree, increase of the field. You shall receive no more reproach
of famine among the heathen. The Lord from me is thy fruit
found. And that promise is again restored
to them. Then there is in verse 31, the
promise of repentance and a godly sorrow. Then shall you remember your
own evil ways and your doings that were not good. Very often
we think that that will come first, but it's when the Lord
restores and when he blesses and then we see from a position
of blessing and a healthy spiritual position, we look back to what
we were and then we can be utterly ashamed of what we were. And I proved it many times, the
times of the deepest sorrow and grief and repentance and humbling
before God has been when the Lord has been pleased to visit,
bless and restore my soul. And I look back and I've seen
where I have been and seen it and really mourned over it and
confessed it and wept before the Lord because of that condition. So these promises are set before
us here. They were laid out for the children
of Israel. They're laid out in a spiritual
sense, a blessed sense for the people of God. On to come then
lastly to the key to the promises. as being prayer. In our text,
thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this, for these promises
to be fulfilled, to be inquired of by the house of Israel, to
do it for them. As yet, they were not asking.
It's not only speaking of prayer, it's speaking of asking. And
we may be praying, you may say, I do pray, but are you asking? Are you praying for the right
things? Have we been brought to the end of our own help? You know, when I was in trade,
when I was in apprenticeship, there were those times that I
thought, well, I could do this myself. And I would be trying
to do certain tasks. And my boss would be looking
on, my fitter that I was working under as an apprentice. And you
see, and I'd get into such a mess and such a confusion and not
be able to do it. And he'd just let me go and let
me go until I'd have to turn to him and say, look, I can't
do it. You do it for me. And I'd actually ask him to do
it for me. He was watching all the time.
He could see what I was doing or what I was failing to do. But there's that turning and
asking. And that is what is set before
us here. There's a real encouragement,
as we said at the very beginning, that the Lord waits for this. The expectation is that there
will come a time when a people fall down and there is none to
help and they will call upon the name of the Lord. I will
yet for this. It will happen. It will come
about. Those of you that pray for souls,
those that look for the Lord's work in your loved ones, those
that look for it in the community and those round about us, it's
a blessed promise that though at the moment you look and you
say there's no prayer, there's no falling down, There's no effort,
there's no desire after the Lord. And yet for the Lord's people,
the Lord says, I would yet be inquired of. There shall come
a time that they will pray. They will fall down when there's
none to help and they will seek me. And so there's an expectation
here. James in his epistle, He speaks
of those that are asking, but they're asking amiss, and so
they don't receive it. Why are they asking amiss? To
consume it on their lusts. It's a most solemn thing that
we should think that we should be blessed to the Lord and still
go on in our sin. Israel was like that, and we
will, our deceitful heart. We'd like to have heaven. We'd
like to have the blessings of the Lord, and we'd like to have
our sins as well. But the Lord says no. When you
ask, it will be for all these things to be done, which includes
being sanctified, separated from your sins, and brought to me
and brought to be a holy people. This word yet, it's held out
still, a word of hope. And those of you who may groan
under prayerlessness, carelessness, a hard heart, The Lord sees,
he knows, the cries, the groans. And to have that hope there is
yet laid up in store. May the Lord use the word this
morning to turn us to be asking. The Lord said, ask and it shall
be given you. If you ask anything in my name,
I will do it, he says. John 14, verse 14, beautiful
word. Anything, well here are the things
to ask. I will be, I will yet be, for
this, be inquired of. Really, this passage here, it
gives us prayer. It gives us what things to ask
the Lord to do for us. And may the Lord help us to take
this passage and to use it as a prayer and to Ask of the Lord,
Lord do this for me. Do this for me, bless me with
these blessings. So prayer here is the key. It's what the Lord waits to answer
prayer and to be glorified in his people that are brought to
ask him to do these things for them. The people that are brought
to the end of themselves The people that know that they cannot
take these blessings and apply them to themselves, they need
the Lord to apply them, the Lord to do it for them. And they acknowledge
this in their asking. And in their asking, they worship.
And in their asking, they fulfil the word of God. And the Lord,
according to his word and for his own sake, comes and he blesses
them in this way. May the Lord bless us in this
way. For his name's sake. Amen.