Let us turn again to the Word
of God and the words to which I would direct your attention
this morning in particular are found in that chapter that we
read in the book of the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 36 and at
verse 37. In the book of the prophet Ezekiel,
chapter 36, and these words in 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. 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. This book of Ezekiel is a rather
difficult part of the Bible to read very often. I expect some
of you have read it, or parts of it, and sometimes we wonder
what these things mean and find them quite difficult to interpret.
But there are those places in the book, though it is a dark
book and a mysterious book, where we find these wonderful promises
scattered through the book and against that dark and mysterious
background, perhaps they even seem to shine more brightly than
ever. And that's certainly true of
this 36th chapter. This was a time really of hopelessness
in the land of Israel. And the Jews really at this time
were in a situation where there was a real low point in their
history. And you can read through the
earlier books of the Bible and you can read about the history
of the Jews and there were many high points, weren't there? You
can think about the time when they came out of Egypt after
those hundreds of years of slavery under the Egyptians. and God
brought them out of Egypt under the hand of Moses and they were
led across the desert and into the promised land. And you can
think of many other times when the Jews really knew times of
great rejoicing and times of great prosperity. But now, as
I say, in this situation, in this chapter, we find them in
a time of great trouble and a time of great discouragement. It was a time of trouble and
a desperate time really, but it was also a very predictable
time because you can read about some of the prophecies that had
been spoken concerning the Jews previously. You can go right
back to the book of Leviticus and you can read the words of
Moses who spoke to them about what would happen if they departed
from God's commandments and if they worshipped idols. And he
says to them in that book of Leviticus, if ye walk contrary
unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times
more plagues upon you because of your sins. And amongst those
plagues, amongst those threatened punishments, he speaks in this
way, I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out
a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate, and your cities
waste. And now we find that that prophecy
is being fulfilled. The Jews had departed from God,
and they were mixing their worship with idolatry. They were worshipping
the false gods of those nations that lived round about them.
And as a result of that, God was judging them for it, and
punishing them for it, and seeking to correct them for it. And it
was at that time that Ezekiel was called upon to prophesy. You can read about the history
in the book of Kings. If you turn to the second book
of Kings in chapter 24, you will find that the Jews really were
threatened with being overrun by a foreign army. Because of their idolatry, because
of their sins, God had brought against them this great king,
Nebuchadnezzar. He was the king of Babylon, and
he was the greatest and most powerful king in the world at
that time. And he comes up against Jerusalem,
the capital city of Israel, and he really makes that city one
of his own cities. You can read in the 24th chapter
of the second book of Kings, in his days, in the days of Jehoiakim,
who then was the king of Judah. In his days, Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant,
three years. In other words, he agreed to
pay tribute to Nebuchadnezzar. He agreed that Nebuchadnezzar
really would hold the throne, and that Jehoiakim would really
be his servant. And for three years, he served him in that
way. But then we read he turned and
rebelled against him. And as a result of his rebellion,
and as a result of the rebellion of his son Jehoiakim, the king
of Babylon comes back again to Jerusalem. And he besieges the
city and he surrounds it. And the food starts to run out.
And eventually Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, has to go out
of the city and surrender to the king of Babylon. And you
can read again in that chapter, Jehoiachin, the king of Judah,
went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his servants
and his princes and his officers. And the king of Babylon took
him in the eighth year of his reign. And he carried out then
all the treasures of the house of the Lord, all those wonderful
things that Moses had made for the temple, and all the wonderful
things that Solomon had made for the temple. The king of Babylon
carried them all away and took them back to his own city and
put them in the house of his own God. And he carried away
at that time around 10,000 Jews. They were carried away to the
king of Babylon's city. And there were just a few poor
people left behind. And Ezekiel, this man Ezekiel,
whose prophecy we have here, he was one of those 10,000. He
was carried away with those 10,000 into the land of Babylon. And
so you can read at the beginning of his prophecy that he prophesied
to those Jews who were exiled from their own city. He says,
when I was among the captives by the river of Chiba, the heavens
were opened and I saw visions of God. And he prophesied in
that land of Babylon during that time of captivity. This was the first captivity.
The king of Babylon takes away 10,000 from Jerusalem, and he
takes them to his own land. But it wasn't the end. What happened
subsequently? Well, again, you can read about
it in the second book of Kings. When the king of Babylon took
away those 10,000 Jews, he put a new king in Jerusalem, a man
called Mataniah. And he changed his name to Zedekiah,
and he really was the last king of Judah. And for a time there was a kind
of peace for around nine years when this king, Zedekiah, he
served the king of Babylon. And the king of Babylon goes
back to his own city and he leaves Jerusalem alone for nine years.
But then in the ninth year of his reign, he too rebels against
the king of Babylon. And when the king of Babylon
hears about his rebellion, he comes back again. And again he
surrounds the city. And he besieges the city and
for a year and a half there is a state of siege in Jerusalem.
And the people are isolated. Even now though, those Jews,
they really failed to understand the gravity of the situation.
Even now they assumed that everything would be well. They thought,
well, we're the chosen people. We're the special people. We're
the holy people. How could this happen to us?
They trusted in their pedigree, they trusted in their history,
but they never trusted in God. What kind of things were they
saying in Jerusalem during that siege? Well, they heard the prophecies
of Jeremiah. He was there in Jerusalem. And
he spoke about their sins and he spoke about the judgment that
was coming. But what was their response to his prophecy? Well,
they were saying things like this. If you look in the 11th
chapter of Ezekiel's prophecy in verse 3, there were these
wicked men in Jerusalem and they were saying, it is not near.
Let us build houses. This city is the cauldron and
we be the flesh. In other words, they were saying, these prophecies
of Jeremiah, they're so miserable. He always seems so glum and depressing. But those things that he's threatening,
they're not near to us. They won't come upon us. We'll
be alright. This city, they said, is the
cauldron. We're protected in this city. The king of Babylon
can never come in here. And they trusted in those high
walls that they had built. And they thought that because
of those walls they would be defended. Yes, they heard the
prophecies of Ezekiel. They heard the prophecies of
Jeremiah. But they said the vision that he seeth is for many days
to come. He prophesied of the times that are far off. They
heard the threatenings that were pronounced against them, but
they said, well, it won't come to us. It won't come in our day.
He's talking about a long time in the future. And so they failed
to hear, and so they rejected the message of those prophets.
They rejected the message of Ezekiel. In the 20th chapter of this book,
We find Ezekiel complaining, then said, I, our Lord God, they
say of me, doth he not speak parables? In other words, they
never understood his prophecies. And they said, Ezekiel, he doesn't
make any sense. He talks about God judging us,
but we are the chosen people of God. He's speaking in parables
we don't understand. And so they reject him. And they continued to do so all
the while that they were besieged. All the while that the king of
Babylon was there outside the gates of Jerusalem, and the food
is beginning to run out, and the water is beginning to run
out, but all the while they failed to listen to men like Jeremiah. They failed to listen to men
like Jeremiah. Even when the city was eventually
taken. And it was at that time, I say,
that Ezekiel is called upon to preach and to prophesy. It was
a time of trouble. It was a time of discouragement.
It was a time of real despair in the land of Israel. It was at that time that Ezekiel
comes with this message here in this 36th chapter. What is the parallel today? Why are these words here? Why
has God given us this passage? Why has God given us this book
of Ezekiel? Well, isn't there a parallel today? The land of Israel is lying desolate.
And what is it for? It's because of sin. It's the
effect of sin. It's the result of sin. Sin has
a killing effect. What does the Bible tell us about
sin? It says the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is
death. And that's just as true today as it was in the days of
Ezekiel. Sin is a killing thing. That's
something that's put before us almost from the very beginning.
You remember the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
and their fall? And what did God say concerning that fall?
He said, because you have disobeyed, because you have done that, because
you have eaten of that fruit which I told you you were not
to eat of, God says to them, the ground is cursed for your
sake. Thorns and thistles it shall
bring forth. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of
thy life. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. In
other words, the ground is not just going to spontaneously bring
forth food for you anymore, Adam. You're going to have to work
for it. It's going to bring forth thorns
and thistles, and we see that's true today, don't we? You take
a beautiful garden, if you don't care for it, if you don't tend
it, what will happen? It will eventually become overgrown with
weeds. And it will become overgrown
with thorns and thistles. And so when we want to grow something
in the garden, we have to work at it. We have to dig the ground,
we have to sow the seed. The wages of sin is death. You
have again a picture of it in the flood. You remember the days
of Noah and the situation in the earth in that time. And God
looks down upon it and he sees the earth is full of violence.
And the wickedness of man is great in the earth. And then
the flood comes, and Noah only and his family, their lives are
preserved, but there is this death that is the result of sin. Sin has this killing effect,
and that's why when you go to the other end of the Bible, and
you read in the book of Revelation, and John has this vision of heaven,
And what does he see about heaven? He sees it's a place of life.
It has a river of life in it. It has a tree of life in it.
It's a place that's full of life. And that's why it's a place where
there's no sin. There's no sin in heaven. Because
sin is incompatible with life. Sin never produces life. Sin
has a killing effect. And that's true of all sins,
it's not just true of some sins. We often make the mistake of,
when we hear about sin, we start immediately to think about particular
sins. And we think about the sin of adultery, we think about
the sin of murder. And we say, well, yes, we can
see that these sins are bad sins, they have a terrible effect.
But that's not just true of those sins, it's true of all sin. And
it was true of the sins of these Jews in the days of Ezekiel.
the sin of idolatry, the sin of worshipping other gods, the
sin of walking in defiance of God's Word. Time and time again they have
set before them these two ways, the way of death and the way
of life. Jeremiah does it, doesn't he?
Time after time. He says to them, I have set before
you the way of death and the way of life. These two ways,
these two pathways, and constantly these Jews, they are choosing
the wrong pathway. They are walking in the way of
death. They're walking in the way of sin. Sin works death. The wages of sin is death. And yet, despite the fact that
these Jews heard so much about their sins, and heard so much about the threatened
consequence of their sins, they never paid attention. Perhaps
they were ready to compare themselves to other people and they said,
well, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they keep telling us that we're sinners,
but we see other people around us who are so much worse than
us. And so they comforted themselves perhaps with this idea that they
were not so bad as other people. And they rejected the threatenings
and the judgments that Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke of. They didn't hear his warnings.
They didn't pay any attention to his threatened judgments.
They said, all will be well. You look at how they're spoken
of in the 33rd chapter of this book. When God says to Ezekiel,
these Jews, they come and they listen to you, but they don't
pay any attention. God says to Ezekiel at the end
of chapter 33, also thou son of man, The children of thy people
still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors
of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his
brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word
that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee as the
people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear
thy words, but they will not do them. For with their mouth they show
much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And
lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song as one, of one that
hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument, for
they hear thy words, but they do them not. They heard the words
of Ezekiel. They even seemed to enjoy hearing
his prophecies, but they never really paid any attention to
them. They never really took them to
heart. They thought all will be well. His judgments won't
come upon us. Jerusalem will never be taken.
It's the holy city. It's God's city. And we are the
holy people, we are God's people, they said. These judgments, these
threatenings, they'll never come to us. Well, again, translated
into what it means for us today, the Bible speaks to us about
sin, and it tells us what the consequences of sin are, and
it tells you what the wages of sin are. Time after time, it
puts before us these two ways, the way of death, the way of
life, the way of God, and the way of
the enemy of God. And it tells us very clearly
what the end result will be if we walk in the wrong pathway.
And yet, naturally speaking, what's our response to it? We
hear these things. Perhaps some of us heard these
things from when we were children. I can remember hearing about
sin when I was a child. What was my response to it? And
what was the response of the natural man? We shrug our shoulders
and we say, well, it won't come to us. We say, other people, they deserve
to be punished for their sins, but not me. And we pay no attention to the
word of God. That was what these Jews did.
That was the mistake that they made. And yet the judgment did
come, didn't it? What did Ezekiel hear about in
chapter 33? It came to pass in the 12th year
of our captivity. So 12 years after Ezekiel had
been taken into captivity. In the tenth month, in the fifth
day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem
came unto me, saying, the city is smitten. The city is smitten.
And again you can read about it in the second book of Kings. What happened at the end of Zedekiah's
reign? There was that siege for a year
and a half. And on the ninth day of the fourth month, the
famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the
people of the land. They couldn't hold out anymore. And the city
was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night, by the
way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden.
The king's army is deserting him. They're turning their backs
to their enemies. They've run out of food. They've
got nothing left to fight with. And the king himself has to escape
from Jerusalem and he flees across the plain of Jericho and there
he's captured by the army of the Chaldeans. His eyes are put
out. His sons are killed before his
very eyes and he's taken away into Babylon. And then in the
fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, The captain of
the guard, the captain of the king of Babylon's army comes
into Jerusalem and he burns the house of the Lord and the king's
house and the houses of Jerusalem and every great man's house he
burned with fire. And all the army of the Chaldees
that were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls
of Jerusalem round about. That punishment that Jeremiah
had threatened, that punishment that Ezekiel had spoken of, now
it comes. Now it comes. The city is taken. The city is smitten. And you
think what that must have meant for those Jews. That city of
Jerusalem, it was the very centre of their worship, wasn't it?
It sat at the very centre of their religion. That temple that
Solomon had built and all the worship that was conducted there. All the while that that temple
was still standing, these captives in Babylon, they had something
to look back on, didn't they? And there was a hope. And perhaps
they thought one day we'll be able to go back, but now the
city's gone. And it must have felt like to
them they had come to the end of everything. Look at how they're
represented in the next chapter, in chapter 37. Here Ezekiel has
this prophecy of the valley full of dry bones. And God says to
him, these bones, they represent the house of Israel. Behold,
they say, our bones are dried and our hope is lost. We are
cut off for our paths. In other words, the Jews were
saying, well, it's all come to nothing now. This is the end of everything. There's nothing to return to.
The city is smitten. Jerusalem is destroyed. We are
cut off. Our hope is lost. Our bones are
dried. But this is the wonderful thing
about these chapters here in this part of this book of Ezekiel,
because now God is going to do something. Now God is going to
act. And all through this section
of this book, from chapter 34 all the way to the end of chapter
39, God is speaking about what He
is going to do. When the Jews have come to the end of everything,
now is the time that God is going to act. Did you notice in our reading
in this 36th chapter how many times God talks about what he
will do? I think you'll find it's 25 times
in this chapter. And there are those sections
in this chapter which is, they're just full of God's promises.
They're just full of God revealing what he will do. Look at verse
9. I will turn unto you. And in
verse 10, I will multiply men upon you. And in verse 11, I
will multiply upon you man and beast, and I will settle you
after your old estates. And I will do better unto you
than at your beginnings. In verse 12, I will cause men to walk
upon you. And then again, you look at that section from
verse 23. Again God says, I will sanctify my great name. I will
take you from among the heathen. I will bring you into your own
land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you. I will give you a new
heart. I will put within you a new spirit.
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. I will give
you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you. Time and time again God talks
about what He is going to do. At this time when the Jews really
have given up, At this time when they've come to the end of their
own wisdom, when they don't know what to do, when they don't know
where to turn, now God says, I'm going to do something. I
am going to act. And how does he do it? Well,
look at this 37th verse again. Thus saith the Lord God, I will
yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel." In other
words, now that these Jews have come to the end of all their
own hopelessness, now that they've come to the end of all their
false confidences, God says, now they're going to look back
to me. Now they're going to start asking me for things. Now they're
going to begin to look and inquire of me. Why was it? Well, naturally speaking,
they had nothing else to look to, did they? Jerusalem wasn't
there anymore. The temple wasn't there anymore.
The army of Judah, it was destroyed. There was nothing that they could
hope in from that direction. And because they had nothing
else to hope in, now they start to look back to the God of Abraham,
back to the God of their fathers. He's brought them to the end.
And now he says they're going to start inquiring of me, start
asking of me, start looking to me. I will yet for this be inquired
of by the House of Israel." And he's ready to hear those
inquiries. He's ready to hear those askings. He's ready to
receive their prayers and ready to answer their prayers. And
he still is ready to receive prayer today. And he still is
ready to hear prayer from those who have come to the end of all
their own resources. I will yet for this be inquired
of by the House of Israel. Have you ever inquired of Him
in this way? Have you ever looked to Him for the forgiveness of
your sins? If you haven't, there's only one reason for it. You've
not understood what sin is. You've not understood what sin
is doing to you. You've not understood what sin has done to you. You've
not understood what sin will do to you. Just like these Jews in those
days previous to this, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, those other prophets,
they spoke to them of sin. They spoke to them of the consequence
of sin. But the Jews didn't believe them.
They shrugged their shoulders. They said, well, yeah, we agree
that sin is a bad thing, but we don't think it's all that
bad. We agree that sin deserves punishment, but we don't think
it deserves the destruction of Jerusalem. And so they rejected
the message of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and they wouldn't turn to God,
they wouldn't call upon Him. They didn't think they needed
to. They thought they could deal with their own situation. They
thought they could sort out their own sins. And all the while that
you think that you can deal with your own sins, you won't inquire
of God in the way that is spoken of here. All the while we fail to understand
the results of sin. and what sin is and what sin
will do to us. We won't pray and I can't make you see it. Nobody can make you see it. Yes,
I could stand here and talk to you about sin and talk to you
about hell and what hell is and that place of separation from
God, that place of hopelessness. I could talk to you about these
things, but what would be the result? Well, you might hear
it, but you would go out of the chapel into the bright sunshine
on this glorious day, and it would just seem like another
world. You'd say, well, it's not really true, is it? It's
not really true that God punishes sin in that way. Only God can make you see this.
Unless God makes us see it, we shrug our shoulders, we say it
won't happen to us. Just like these Jews did here. But here,
these Jews, they've come to the end of all that. And now they're
looking back towards God. And it's an amazing thing, isn't
it? And doesn't it come to the very heart of what the Gospel
tells us? That God is ready to hear their
prayers. Despite all that they have done
to Him in the past, despite the way that they have turned their
backs upon Him, and lived their lives in defiance of Him, yet
He is still pleased to hear their prayers, to receive these inquiries, Perhaps there would have been
those amongst the Jews at this time, and perhaps they would
have said to Ezekiel, well, now we see that you were right, and
the city has been destroyed, but is there any hope for us
now? Surely God won't hear our prayers,
given all that we've done, and all that we've said, and all
the idolatry that we've committed. No, says Ezekiel. God is still
ready to hear. God is still ready to receive
your prayers. And He still does it today. What does He say to
us in the book of Psalms there in Psalm 102? It talks about
God and it says He will. He will regard the prayer of
the destitute. He will. He always will. He won't despise
their prayer. When the Lord shall build up
Zion, he shall appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer
of the destitute. He will regard the prayer of
the destitute. It must have been an encouragement to the psalmist,
mustn't it? The head of that psalm, the title of the psalm
is this. It says, a prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed
and poureth out his complaint before the Lord. Do you ever
come to those times when you feel to be overwhelmed and you
can just have to pour out your complaint before the Lord? Well,
if you do be encouraged by the message of God here, he will
regard the prayer of the destitute. He won't despise their prayer.
When these Jews turned back towards him and started to seek of him
for those things that Ezekiel has spoken of here, God didn't
say, well, if you'd asked earlier, I would have heard you. But it's
too late now. No, he's ready to hear. He's ready to answer. What did
Jesus say to his disciples when he spoke of them of prayer
and their familiar words? He said, ask and it shall be
given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened
unto you for everyone that asketh receiveth. Everyone, not just
some, not just the good people, not just those who deserve it,
but everyone that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth.
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. I will yet for this be inquired
of by the house of Israel to do it for them. But you might
say, well, I don't know if I'm one of this house of Israel.
The Jews, they were the chosen people, weren't they? And as
you look through the New Testament, you find it written that God
has a chosen people today. There are a people for whom Jesus
came and for whom he died. And you might be ready to say
to me, well, I don't know if I'm one of those people. So how can
I pray? How can I inquire of him if I
don't know if I'm one of the house of Israel? Well, where
does it tell you that you need to know that before you pray? Where does God say that you need
to know that before you ask? He doesn't say that. He almost
gives the impression that it's the opposite, doesn't he? He
never says to us, well, you have to make sure you're one of the
good people before you pray to me. No, he says, seek ye the
Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way. And the unrighteous man is thought,
this is a gospel for the wicked, this is a gospel for the unrighteous.
And let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him.
And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. I will yet for this be
inquired of. This is the mark of the people
of God. They will inquire after these things that are spoken
of here. What are the things that are spoken of here? Well,
they're wonderful things, aren't they? You take a look at that
35th verse. This land that is desolate. God
is talking about the land of Israel and it was a desolate
land. Because the Israelites had been taken into captivity,
there was nobody left to farm the land. There was nobody left
to till it or to sow it. And so, inevitably, it had become
overgrown. And it had become like a wilderness.
This land that was desolate. But what's the promise of God
concerning this desolate land? He says, they shall say, this
land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden. It's
become like the Garden of Eden. In other words, there's been
a complete change. You remember what the Garden
of Eden was like. It was a place where everything was provided
for Adam and Eve. They didn't have to work really
to make the garden grow fruit. It just happened. And not only that, but it was
a place where God was immediately present with them. It was a place
where God would come and speak to them. This land that was desolate has
become like the Garden of Eden. In other words, it's gone from
a place where God is almost entirely absent, from a place of desolation,
to a place where God is present, to a place where God is. from
desolation to the Garden of Eden. It's gone from death to life.
This is the kind of thing that God promises to do. The waste
and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited. Everything is put right again.
Everything is returned to what it previously had been. These are the things that these
Jews were brought to inquire of. They were brought to inquire
after life, to inquire after God. And God promises to do these
things for them. How does He do it? Well, He describes
the process to us there in verse 9, doesn't He? He speaks of these desolate mountains
and He says, Behold, I am for you and I will turn unto you. I am for you and I will turn
unto you even though you don't deserve it. And ye shall be tilled
and sown. What is meant by those two words,
tilled and sown? Well, it's putting before us
the work of God in everyday language, isn't it? We all know what it
is to till and to sow. You see it taking place in the
fields. What does the farmer do when he wants the field to
produce a crop? Well, he has to do two things, doesn't he?
He has to prepare the soil and then he has to sow the seed. And here God says to us, well,
it's like that spiritually. When I work in the heart of a
sinner and when I am going to prepare them for heaven, there
are these two things that I will do to them. I will till and I
will sow. What does it mean to till the
ground? Well, it's to work on it, isn't it? And what's the result? The ground
is broken up. That's what you do when you plough
the soil, isn't it? Or when you dig your garden.
You're opening the soil up, you're breaking it up. You're getting
deep into it. And God does this today in a
spiritual sense. Don't we see him doing this in
the life of the Apostle Paul? What happened to him there on
the Damascus Road? You remember how it was with
him before that experience? He was a persecutor of the church. And when he thought of Christ,
he thought of him as a blasphemer and as an apostate, one to be
hated. And he sought to go about persecuting
the followers of Christ. And he comes to Damascus with
that intention. And there his life is suddenly
turned upside down, isn't it? And it's as if his heart is tilled,
it's ploughed, it's opened up. God speaks to him, Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? And you think of what it must
have been like for him to spend those three days in Damascus
without eating or drinking, with no sight. He's blinded by this experience
that he has, and it must have been a time of turmoil, mustn't
it? His heart is being ploughed up,
his whole life is being turned upside down. And suddenly he
sees that all his religion that he had possessed before that,
it was worthless. Now all the time, although he was so active
in his religion, he was all the time going in entirely the wrong
direction. His heart is ploughed, it's tilled, it's turned over,
it's opened up, it's broken. But that's not the end of the
work of God, is it? It wasn't the end of the work of God in
Paul. That really is just a means to an end. Just as again, as
it is naturally, you don't dig your garden for the sake of it.
The farmer doesn't plough the field just for the sake of it.
He does it with a definite end in mind. He does it because he
needs to do it in order to sow the seed. And the sowing again
is something essential, isn't it? It's no good digging and
digging the garden if you never sow the seed. You think of a man and he comes
to you and he says, you know, there must be something wrong
with my garden because it never grows any fruit, it never grows
any vegetables. And you said to him, well, what
have you tried planting? And he said, well, I've not planted
anything, but I've been digging. I've been digging and digging
for years and years. And time and time again, I've turned the
soil over, but nothing seems to grow. Well, you would think
he was a foolish man, wouldn't you? You would say, it's no good
just digging. You've got to put something new in it. You've got
to put something new in it. That's what makes the difference
between a seed, between a field that's sown and a field that
is not sown. The field that's sown has got
something new in it. Ye shall be tilled and sown. This is what
God does for his people. This is the way he works in them.
Yes, he opens up their hearts and he turns their lives upside
down and their hearts are broken and they're brought to the end
of everything just like these Jews were here. And perhaps they
come to the same point that the Jews came to. Our bones are dried
and our hope is lost. We are cut off for our part.
But then what does he do? He sows. He puts something new
into the hearts of those people. A new seed. Didn't Jesus put
it before us in that parable, perhaps the most well-known of
all the parables, that parable of the sower and his seed? And
he says, you know, this is the work of the gospel. It's like
a farmer with his seed and he goes out into the field and he
starts to scatter the seed and he describes the kinds of soil
that the seed falls upon. And then he gives the interpretation
of that parable. And what does he say? The seed
is the word of God. The seed is the word of God.
This is what God puts into the hearts of his people, his own
word. It's something that comes right
to them. It doesn't just lie on the surface. It doesn't just
pass through their minds. It doesn't just go in one ear
and out the other. But it comes right to them. And when the seed is sown, it
makes a dramatic difference, doesn't it? It makes all the
difference. And that field, perhaps, that was so fruitless and barren
before, now it begins to bear fruit. John speaks of it, doesn't
he? Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. In other words, they don't live
in sin. In other words, they don't have the same relationship
to sin as they had before. Sin is still in them. Sin is
still something that they are troubled by and burdened with,
but now they are troubled by it and burdened with it. It's
not something they delight in. It's not something they think
lightly of. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. They
don't have the same relationship with sin anymore. Why not? Because
his seed remaineth in him. God has put something new in
them. Behold, I am for you, and I will
turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown. Both of these
are essential. Both of these are promised. And
why are they promised? Well, again, it wasn't because
these Jews deserved it. Look at what God says to them
concerning their own sins. He says in verse 31, when I've
done this, then shall you remember your own evil ways and your doings
that were not good, and shall loathe yourself in your own sight
for your iniquities and for your abominations. 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. In other words,
he says to them, I'm not going to do this to you because you
are a deserving people or because you're a good people. or because you're a religious
people. No, he says, I'm going to do it for my own glory, for
my own namesake. Again, he says in verse 22, I
do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy
namesake. And this thing is the thing that he still does for
his own namesake, for his own glory. This is why he made his people.
This is why he works in his people in this way. Why did God make
you and all things? It's the answer in the Catechism,
isn't it? For his own glory. For his own glory. It's in order
that fruit might follow. And what's the fruit of his work?
Well, again, Paul gives us a list, doesn't he? When he writes to
the Galatians, what's the fruit of the Spirit? What's the effect
of the sowing of this seed? Well, he says it's things like
this, it's love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness and temperance. These are the kinds of things
that result when God's seed is sown. What do you know about that love,
that love to God, that love to his word, that love to his people? What do you know about that joy,
unspeakable and full of glory, that peace that passes all understanding? that long-suffering, that gentleness,
that goodness, that faith. These things don't come from
us naturally, do they? They have to come from the seed of God,
from His sowing, from His ploughing. It's the result of His work. But this is the message of this
37th verse, isn't it? And this is the wonderful thing.
And this is where it comes really to the heart of the Gospel. He
loves to be asked to do this. He loves to be asked to do this.
It is His will to be asked to do this. When the sinner comes
and he asks God to work in his heart in this way, and to bring
forth that fruit from him, the sinner is asking for something
that God loves to do. It's not something he does reluctantly.
Just as the father in that parable of the prodigal son, he didn't
receive the son reluctantly, did he? He didn't say, well,
you can come back, I suppose, but don't expect me to treat
you like a son anymore. No, he says, this my son, he's
come back again. He was dead. He's alive. He was
lost. He's found. He loves to be inquired of. He
loves to be asked if you want this fruit. If you feel your heart to be
like a desolate field and you long for it to bring forth that
fruit of love and faith and repentance and joy and peace and hope, well,
ask him to do it. Ask him to do it because he loves
to be asked. Behold, I am for you, and I will
turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown, thus saith the
Lord God. 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. He's talking
about prosperity, isn't he? He's talking about growth. It's true in a personal sense.
When you find your heart to be barren and cold and lifeless,
we have to seek God to give us that life, don't we? It's true
in the case of a church, where there is a local church and it's
being brought to a time of desolation, perhaps, a time of trouble, a
time of discouragement. What is the effect? What ought
to be the effect? To inquire of him. To inquire
of him. There are those things that we
cannot do for ourselves. There are those things we cannot
do for our churches. It's not that we're to be fatalistic.
Don't misunderstand me. It's not that we're to say, well,
we can't do anything about these things, so we'll just pray about
it. There are those things that we have to do, those things that
we must do. But in all these things, if we forget to inquire
of God, if we neglect to inquire of Him, then there's no hope
of any fruit. no hope of any prosperity. Thus
saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the
house of Israel to do it for them. And in all the hopelessness
of the situation in which these Jews were found, he promises
an increase. And it must have seemed impossible
to them, mustn't it? It must have seemed to them as
if it was just now going to be a gradual decline into oblivion.
No, says God, I'm going to do it. I'm going to multiply men
upon you. I'm going to turn unto you. You
shall be tilled and sown. And you know it's going to perhaps
be a painful experience. Again, you think of that field
when it's ploughed up. It's a violent process, isn't
it? A violent process. And perhaps
when we pray for these things, we need to be ready for God to
work upon us in this violent way. to break up our hearts,
to break up all our previous misconceptions about Him and
about ourselves, in order that we might be then ready to receive
His seed, to receive His Word. 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, as the
holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts. So shall
the waste cities be filled with flocks of men. And what's the
end result? What's the end of it all? It's
this, isn't it? They shall know that I am the
Lord. They shall know that I am the
Lord. Well, may God bring us to that blessed place, to know
that He is the Lord, and to worship Him, and to praise Him, and to
love Him, and to serve Him because of it. And may He bless His Word
to us. Amen.