You will take your Bibles and
turn me back to Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel chapter 37. We're looking at verses 15 down through
verse 28. The title of the message is,
The Union of Sticks. The Union of Sticks. After God had performed this
great miracle, one of the greatest miracles in all of Scripture,
in that He did not raise one man from the dead, He did not
raise two men, He raised an exceeding great army of men whose bones
were scattered in the open valley. A great miracle. And it was done
by the preaching of the gospel. Thus saith the Lord. This man Ezekiel preached the
promise of God to give them life and breath, and as soon as God As soon as
the Word was preached, the Spirit of life came in and they were
resurrected. What a great miracle. What a
great miracle. Well, that's the miracle of our
salvation. That's a picture of our salvation. We were dead. We were dry bones, dead in trespasses
and sin. God's eternal purpose was to
give us life and breath. And in time, Jesus Christ came
and applied what we needed. He completed everything. And again, in time, the gospel
was preached to us, and breath came into our bodies, came into
our souls, and we became a living soul unto God. He created in
us a new nature, a new life of faith and love for Christ. But now, this picture that's
before us is not as spectacular. This picture that's before us
is very simple. It's not complex. It's not grandiose. It's not spectacular. But it
is a great picture. Sometimes we get lost sometimes
in the complexities of great spectacular pictures. So then
God gives the simple, simple pictures. And you got that. See, I preached on the other
one and I couldn't get this one when I was studying. So, this
is the one I need. I need just a simple one. I should
just focus on the simple. The simple, plain message of
picture of two sticks. Two sticks. Ezekiel was told
that he should write the names of the tribes of Israel and the
tribes of Judah on both sticks. One stick was for the tribe of
Israel, the northern tribe. You remember that Israel was
divided at this time, and then as they were divided, they were
carried away captive and separated. They were like two dried sticks,
worthless, of no value. What is a stick? I mean, you
know, I see them all the time and throw them in the trash. You know, they're no good. They're
not part of the tree anymore. They're just dead sticks. And he says, you take your chisel
and you write the names on one stick, the tribes of Israel,
and then on the other stick you write the tribes of Judah, and
then you take these two sticks and you put them together. And
he's holding two sticks together in his hand, and this is his
message. He's holding them together just
like this, and he's walking around, and nobody has any idea what
this crazy prophet is doing. I imagine he just appears crazy,
holding two sticks together in front of everybody. And the people
finally say, look, what does this mean? Why are you holding
these two sticks with all these names on it? What is that for? And he says in verse 19, saying to them,
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph,
which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his
fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah,
and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. Very simple picture. The Scriptures are all the inspired
Word of God. And God leaves nothing for His
messengers to guess. We don't guess what God says. A lot of times, I know that we
feel we should do something, and the Lord may lay it on our
heart, and we think, well, man, that's crazy. We should just
shut up and do it. I think we should just shut up
and do it. Whatever God lays on our hearts to do. What is
in our hand? Do it with all thy might unto
the Lord. You imagine how it would look
now? He was preaching to dead bones
a minute ago, and now he's picking up two sticks, writing the names
on it, and holding the stick in his hand. Holding the two
sticks, making them one. Nobody understood. But see, God didn't leave that
for his imagination to figure out what that meant. Say unto them, thus saith the
Lord. The Gospel, the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God
and are not of any private interpretation. In other words, not everybody
stood around and said, well, what's your opinion about the
two sticks? What do you think? Do you, what do you, pre-millennial,
post-millennial, what's your opinion? No. No, we don't ask
opinions. And if I didn't know what the
two sticks were, I wouldn't come and tell you what the two sticks
were. But God gives the message. And
God just tells us, thus saith the Lord. This is what it is.
It's not up for debate. It's not up for private interpretation. God's message is the same. It
is the message of grace and power. It is the message of union with
Christ. That is the message. Our sins did separate us. from God. But friends, we who
believe are no longer separated but in union with Jesus Christ. And this matter that is before
us is not based on our feelings. Do you not have different feelings
at different times? Our feelings are very fickle.
Man, we can be excited one minute and depressed the next. It doesn't
take much to change our feelings. But friends, our feelings do
not change the Word of God. God's Word is unchangeable. It's
immutable as is person. God has promised in this verse
to unite the two dead kingdoms. This in a physical sense is very
simple. The two kingdoms were divided
because of the sin of David and Solomon, and now then they're
divided. They are at war with each other.
They break apart, go after other gods, and finally God delivers
him captive into Babylon. To this world, that nation was
no longer to be. I mean, that nation was eradicated.
It was assimilated. They had already brought them
in. They had been under two different kingdoms. And God says this,
I will unite you again into that land that I gave your fathers,
and you'll worship me. That was impossible. In the eyes
of all men, that was impossible. But God said, I'll do it. And
God did it. God did it. Not only did he do
it, he did it with the blessings of their enemies. He said, Cyrus,
I called out Cyrus to bring you in. And he mentioned that years
before Cyrus ever was born. God promised to unite these two
kingdoms. But friends, again, this is just
a picture. It's just a picture. Think of
all those lives and all the history and things that went into that,
and yet God was using all that just to show us how He would
bring us from captivity and unite us who are the true Israel of
God. How He would unite us who were
divided. The Scripture speaks of Jesus
Christ He is the uniting factor. He is what holds the church together. He is the foundation upon which
the church is built, and we are living stones in union with the
foundation. What good is this sturdy wall
if it's not attached to the foundation? If it's not in union with the
foundation, It has no value. But friends, we who are believers
in Christ, we are the church of the living God. We are founded
upon the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. All of the church of God are
two sticks. Now, these two sticks, They picture
to us the nature of the church, and they also picture to us the
election of God's church. Now, the nation of Israel was,
at its very foundation, a picture of the church. Go over to Romans. Hold your place here. Go to Romans
chapter 9. Clearly explained to us in this
chapter. Paul praying for his kindred,
the Jews. He was a Jew and the Jews rejected
the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified him. And he is praying for them. He said, I could wish myself
a curse for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Verse
4, who are Israelites to whom pertaineth the adoption and the
glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service
of God and the promises. whose are the fathers, and of
whom was as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all
God blessed forever. Amen. Not as though the word
of God had taken none effect. He's saying just because the
Jews refused to believe Christ, don't think for one minute that
God's word is null and void. Don't think that God made a mistake.
God's word's not null and void. Why is that? For they are not
all Israel, which are of Israel." In other words, the true Israel
of God is not just that race of people in the Middle East.
That is not the only Israel. They were just a shadow. They
were just a shadow of things to come. A shadow of the church
as a whole. It was promised Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob that out of their line should come the promised seed,
which is Christ, and by Him all the nations of the earth be blessed. Not just one nation. All nations. We know in Revelation that in
the end, when we gather together, that's our song. We'll sing,
Thou hast redeemed us out of every tribe and tongue and kindred
and people and nation. Israel was only a type of God's
election. In Deuteronomy 7, The Lord tells
Israel, He said, I didn't choose you because you were the best.
I didn't choose you because you were the greatest. Matter of
fact, you were the worst people on the face of the earth when
I chose you. You were the worst group of stiff-necked rebels
on the face of the earth. And for my own glory, because
I would, I loved you. That's why. That is how He loves
us. Because He would. That's why
He loves us. Because He would. There's nothing
in us that was lovable, just like there was nothing in Israel.
Therefore, God made a division among men. At that time, He had
made a division among the Jews and the Gentiles. But when Christ
had come, that division had gone away. That division, that type,
was no longer needed. And true, there is a division
among men today. There is a division. There's
sheep and there's goats. There's wheat and there's chaff.
There's tares and there's wheat. Whatever analogy that the Lord
used, there's many of them that He used. There are those in the
wedding feast who have the wedding garment of righteousness and
there are those who bring their own wedding garment and are tasked
out into outer darkness. See, there's a division among
men but not by race, not by creed, not by color, not by any outward
physical description. There is no difference between
men in that we are all sinners. We are all just sticks. A stick by itself is nothing
but a stick. Is that simple enough? What can a stick do without somebody
to wield it, somebody to grab it, somebody to move it? It does
nothing. It can do nothing. And friends, this is the whole
house of Israel. We are as nothing, whether Jew
or Gentile, bond or free, it doesn't matter, male or female,
we are all sinners in need of mercy, great mercy, infinite
mercy. And God, like Israel, even though they
were captive, He has promised to bring them together, even
before they're together. Even before they're together. Even before the world began,
our God did write our names. in the Lamb's Book of Life. God gives us hope in this, that
our names are written in heaven to those who could not come,
to those who are sinners and could not understand the gospel.
Had God not written our names, we would have had no part in
this union. Had God not written our names
in His eternal book of life? Go to Revelation chapter 13.
Revelation chapter 13 and verse 8. The Scripture says, And all that
dwell upon the earth shall worship Him whose names are not written
in the book of the Lamb, Slain from the foundation of the world.
They shall worship the beast. They shall worship false religion
and Satan who is their God. Why? They were not written. Their names were not written. Flip over a couple of pages to
chapter 17. Verse 8, the beast that thou sawest was
and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go
into perdition and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder
whose names were not written in the book of life from the
foundation of the world when they beheld the beast that was
and is not and yet is. You see, there's a group, there's
a people that have their names written in the book of life before
the foundation of the world. Look at chapter 20 and verse
12. And the dead were judged out
of those things that were written in the books according to their
works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and the
death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And
they were judged, every man, according to their works, and
death and hell were cast in the lake of fire. This is the second
death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of
life was cast in the lake of fire." Is that not amazing? You see, we're all going to be
judged by our works. The difference is, if our names
are written in this book, because those who are written in this
book, we're judged by our works as they are performed in the
Lamb. This is the Lamb's book of life. He is our righteousness. Therefore, we have no need to
fear judgment. Because The eternal judge of
the great white throne is Christ himself, who has already provided
my righteousness, our righteousness. And this was because he had written
our names before the foundation of the world. Aren't you glad
that he's written our names? I had heard this one, this man,
he was a member of the English army. He was a disabled veteran
and they had a book, a list. of people that were to receive
benefits. And a man asked him, he said,
how do you know that your name is really written down in that
book? Have you seen it? He said, no,
I just receive a check every month. That's how I know. I receive
a check every month. And friends, the way we know
our names are written, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. By
all means necessary, believe. If you can, believe. Trust. How do I know my name is written
in heaven? Because I believe on the Son
of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I rest my whole
soul on His person and work. I'm on that stick. And it didn't matter which side
I was on, the Jew or the Gentile stick, it didn't matter. Why?
Because both were put together. Both were made one stick. Scripture says that Jesus made
of twain one new man. One body. One church. Second of all, the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the gospel here of the two sticks speaks of the
union with Christ and each other. Look at verse 18. Go back to
your text. Verse 18. And it shall come to pass. Wait,
I'm sorry, I went the wrong way. Verse 18. And when the children
of the people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not show
us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in
the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows,
and put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make
them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand." Believers, do you realize that
you are an absolute enigma and mystery to the people around
you? You are a confusing person. You baffle people. You do. When you come here, you just
extremely, why in the world would you come here? I don't understand. You pass
up 47 churches in the same street and you come here. What is that? You're crazy. You must be insane
to waste all that time and effort and energy. You're a mystery.
You don't understand. And when you tell them, they
look at you and stare at you like you're strange. I've never heard that before.
You must be a cult or something. You must be an out-of-this-world
Jesus freak or something. No. We're just believers in Christ.
We just know Christ. We know Christ. This world will
not know us because it knew not Christ. If they don't know Christ,
they're not going to know you. They're not going to understand
why it is that you would come and hear the gospel, or they're
not even going to understand your gospel. And friends, when
we witness to others, don't guess. I'm not guessing. I'm not guessing
at these things. These things are so. Search them
out yourselves and see. Be wise as the Bereans and search
them out. These things are so. And you
don't have to guess either. You don't know, say you don't
know. Don't get yourself in trouble trying to defend God. God does
a good enough job defending Himself. That's it. When we are asked
a question, you don't understand, the best thing is, I don't understand,
but I know this. Once I was blind, but now I see.
You can't take that away. I don't care what you say. The Scripture says they went
out from us because they were not of us. If they were of us,
they no doubt would continue with us. And if they don't continue
with us, they are a liar. That's what the Scripture says. Does that offend? Yeah. You know
what it offended me, it offended me. But praise God. That I know the
word that he's revealed this to me now, look at this, look
at the word of God here, look at the gospel in verse 19. He
says, behold. Behold, thus saith the Lord. I will take the stick of Joseph. which is in the hand of Ephraim
and all his fellows. And I will put him with the stick
of Judah, and they shall be one in mine hand." Now, that's the
word of God. There's the gospel right there. I will. This whole
gospel is rooted in grace. The whole message of salvation
is rooted in absolute free, absolute total free grace. If God saves a man, it will not
be because of the man. It will be because he had purpose
to do so. Otherwise, that person will continue
on in sin and die in their sins and suffer under the wrath of
God. It's all rooted in grace. This matter of faith. is rooted
in grace. For by grace you are saved through
faith, and that faith is not of yourself. You have faith? Good. Hold fast to Christ. But that faith is not of yourself.
It is the gift of God, and it will always be the gift of God.
If I have faith today, it is the gift of God. It is the grace
of God. It is not me. It is God that
keeps me. in the faith, all the glory in
every part, in every aspect of my life, in my salvation, goes
only to God, continually, forever, never, never me. It's never about me. It's all
about Him. Salvation is all of Him. You see, the church being united
together, that stick coming together is the grace of God that unites
us to Jesus Christ, the Son of God Himself. I'll tell you what, I've used
some of that super glue. Sometimes it works, sometimes
it doesn't. I've used it before and tried to put up my mirror
on my windshield and that thing, it held for a little while and
then as I was driving along it hit a bump and it crashed down
and it broke. It didn't hold. Why? For union. The union wasn't good. Friends, Jesus Christ, our Savior,
is so much in union with us It is like a head and a body. You cannot separate the head
from the body unless you kill it. And friends, you will not
be able to separate us from Christ unless you kill God. That ain't
going to happen. We are in union. with our Savior, because God
did it. He said, I will do it. I will. I will take. I will take. Believers in Jesus Christ, we
know that our only hope of salvation, hope of any lost sinner here,
If you are lost and you do not know the Lord, there is hope.
There is life. There is hope and life in believing
in Christ, in rooted in grace. The gospel does nothing but shut
our mouths. We are such boastful people.
We are such proud people by nature. I will have my own way. I won't
do it your way. I'll do it my own. You see, the
gospel must break the will It must break the heart. The gospel shuts our mouths and
says they are all guilty. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. How then is any sane? There's no hope in religion.
If there's no hope, am I doing good? If there's no hope in God
loving me because of me, then why in the world? Is there any
hope at all? Yes. There's hope when you shut
your mouth and stop working and believe on Christ alone. The Gospel just shuts me up to
grace. shuts me up to grace. I tell you this, if God saves
me, it'll be because of His grace, and if He damns me, He's right
to do so. If God lets me die in my sins,
He is just and holy and right to leave me to rot in hell forever,
because that's what I deserve. But I'm thankful that God gave
me what I did not deserve. Mercy is not deserved. Otherwise,
it's not mercy. I needed mercy. You see, all men are guilty,
but only those who are saved become guilty. See, every man knows that we've
all done wrong. Everybody knows we're sinners.
Oh, but have you become guilty before God? Because those are
the only people God saves. Guilty. Guilty! Vile! Wretches! That's who God saves. And not
only does He save us, He puts us in union with His Son so that
When God sees his son, he sees me. And when he sees me, he sees
his son. Amazing, wonderful grace that
would unite us. Us? Who would have thought us? The world says, yeah, surely
me. We say, me? Really? Wow. God says, I will unite you to
Christ, and by uniting you to Christ, by uniting you to my
Son, I will also unite you together as one. John 17, the Lord Jesus
prayed that, didn't he? He said, Father, I pray that
they be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, one. inseparable. It's so amazing that not even
the hosts of hell and all their rage could separate me from God. Not even me and my foolish, arrogant,
sinful nature can separate me from God. I'm in union with Christ. And
the gospel of this union The gospel of this union is given
to preachers. This gospel message of union,
look at this in verse 20, "...and the sticks wherein thou writest
shall be in thine hand." You see, they were in his hand. He
is the one that united them by grace from eternity, by grace,
by the death and burial and resurrection of Christ. Now then, he gives
this united This one church into the hands of His preachers. The gospel is given to God's
men to declare it. Look at Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter 1. It says in verse
2, "...in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised
before the world began." There's the union of the church in Christ. "...but hath in due times manifested
His word," how? "...through the preaching which
is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our
Savior." That word committed means sacred trust. a sacred trust. God has entrusted to me to preach this same gospel
to you. That is not something any man
is qualified for. I am not capable or worthy to
do such a thing as this. Not worthy. Yet I received it
of the command of God my Savior. It is a sacred trust. This gospel
message should be looked at by the church as a sacred trust.
Do you realize that He has put Himself in earthen vessels in
you? You, His church, so that you
might go out and witness of Him It is our sacred duty. It is
our sacred trust to witness of Christ. Go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This
is given to us, to our charge. And what do we preach? I will
take. I like that word. Go back to your text and look
at that real quick. I will take. God says. That word means to
seize or to capture, to obtain. God says, I will capture, I will
obtain, I will draw with my power. It's the same word used for fetch. We were talking about that last
night, a message by Jack Shanks. Fetching grace. Fetching grace. You remember when Phibosheth,
he couldn't go. He couldn't go to David. Matter of fact, he
didn't want to go to David because he was of the house of Saul.
He'd be killed. And yet David sent and fetched
him. That's the same word. I will
fetch. Fetching grace. He took and fetched
Mephibosheth. And so God takes and fetches
His people. He fetches us. Where does He fetch us from? Look at verse 21. Saying to them,
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will fetch the children of
Israel from among the heathen. Where did He fetch you? Well,
I was a good Christian. That's where he fetched me. I
was good. He didn't fetch you. He fetched me from the heathen.
That's where he fetched me. He took me from the sinful race,
dead race. He fetched me like Mephibosheth. You know, I studied his name
a little more, and it means extinguishing the shameful thing. In other
words, he was supposed to be the destroyer of the idols, but
he himself became the shameful thing. Instead of the exterminator
of the shameful thing, he was the shameful thing. That was
me. But you know what? When he was fetched, he became
what his name was, the exterminator of The shameful thing. You, believer,
are a light in this world. You are a light. And what does your light shine?
What does it say to men? God fetched me! He fetched me
from the heathen. He took us. He said, I will fetch
them from the heathen, whether they have gone, and will gather
them on every side. and bring them into their own
land. God says, I will gather. How did God gather us? He gathered us by His loving
kindness. You know, it's the love of God. It's the love and goodness of
God that leadeth man to repentance. You want to see the love of God,
you've got to look at the cross. You won't find the love of God
by looking at your love. There's no no way, but his love
is great. And his love never ends. He says, I have loved you with
an everlasting love and with loving kindness, I am drawn. Wonderful, isn't that great? He broke my will and fetched
me from the fires of hell and pulled me into His loving embrace. And He whispered in my ear, I've
always loved you. I will always love you. There'll
never be a time that I won't love you. How could you love me? A sinner
condemned unclean. Oh, how marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love to me. It's a fetching love. It's a
drawing and gathering love of God. And His promise is to us,
He'll deliver us to our place. He'll deliver us to the land
that He has promised. This gospel is preached freely
to everybody. I don't know what God will do
with it with you, but that's not my business anyway. When
I start meddling in that, it all goes wrong. I don't need
to. But my heart is for sinners that
they might repent and believe the gospel, that God may shut their mouths
and bow their hearts to receive His total forgiveness and love. Come empty and go away with fullness
of joy. You know, I like joy. Do you
all like joy? I love to have joy. Christ said, I came that you
might have fullness of joy. He said, My peace I give unto
you, not like the world gives, they give and take away. I give
it to you forever. I make an everlasting covenant with you, and your king, your king shall
reign over you in the land that I promised you. What is the land
He promised us? The land He promised us is not
here. He didn't promise us this. Praise
God He didn't promise us this. This is horrible. This stuff
is horrible. It just teases you. It just says,
oh, here's joy, here's joy. Oh, you missed it. They're going
to try over there now. Chasing you around like a dog chasing
its tail. There's no end to it. But that's
not our promise. Our promise is heaven. Our promise
is eternal life. Our promise is that He will put
His sanctuary in the middle of us and we will glorify His name
forever. Never being tired. Never being
tired of hearing of His name. Never being tired of saying His
name. Never being tired of proclaiming
His name. Never being so put out by having
to love each other. Soon and very soon, we shall see what God has joined
together. We'll see the fullness of our
unity with Christ in each other. You think I love you now. I don't
love you as much as I'm going to. Praise God for His unifying grace
that He had taken these broken sticks and put our names on them. And by His own hand, He put us
together as one in Christ. What an amazing thing. If you keep digging at that,
you won't find an end to it. I pray that God will bless this
to your hearts. by Sovereign Spirit. Let's stand and we'll
be dismissed in prayer.