Come Holy Spirit, heavenly dove
with all thy quickening powers. We're gonna be looking tonight
in Ezekiel chapter 37, if you'd like to be turning there. The
spirit of the Lord is what quickens. It is what makes us alive. And
it is our only hope that the Lord would send his spirit and
shed abroad a savior's love and it should quicken ours. We've been going through numbers,
physical numbers, numerals, one through four tonight. We're on
number four. And as I was studying, I saw several different instances
where the number four was used in Scripture, but I came across
Isaiah 37. The Lord brought it to my memory,
and I was speaking to Greg on the phone. And by the way, he
sends his love. I wanted to tell everybody that
and certainly be praying for them as the hurricane down there. We don't know what it's going
to do. We know it's the Lord's hurricane, don't we? He's purposed it. But
we were talking, he reminded me of, brought something to my
memory. And so this is what the Lord laid on my heart for us
tonight. Ezekiel 37, we're gonna look at verse number one. It
says, the hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in
the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley,
which was full of bones. "'and caused me to pass by them
round about, "'and behold, there were very many in the open valley,
"'and lo, they were very dry. "'And he said unto me, Son of
man, can these bones live? "'And I answered, O Lord God,
thou knowest. "'Again he said unto me, prophesy
upon these bones, "'and say unto them, O ye dry bones, "'hear
the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and
ye shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you
and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and
put breath in you and ye shall live and ye shall know that I
am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded.
And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking.
And the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I
beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them. And the
skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them.
Then said he unto me, prophesy unto the wind. And that word
in my margin is breath, breath. prophesy unto the wind, or the
breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say
to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds,
O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So
I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into
them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, and exceeding
great army. I titled this The Four Winds,
and I would like for us tonight to look at the four winds according
to what is written in the word of God. There is four corners
of the earth, if you want to put it that way. Now, the scripture
is very clear on the earth that it's a circle, but we know that
the scripture refers to the four corners as being the north, the
south, the east, and the west. Each one of these in the scripture,
there's different winds that blow and the Lord uses them for
different instances and different circumstances. Notice in verse
two of this that these bones were very dry. Now, this is easy
for us to understand. when it comes to us spiritually
by nature. We see that we are very, very
dry. We are dead in trespasses and
in sin. Somebody mentioned before me,
I can't take credit for this, I think it was Rob that said
it, but over in Bali where we were meeting was a cemetery,
a graveyard right beside us. We were in a valley of dry bones,
literally at that time. Now we have a cemetery right
behind us also. What does that mean? Well, it's
a good reminder of where we're heading to. We're going back
from the dust which came, we're going back to being nothing but
dry bones. Our hope is that the Lord would
send his spirit in power. He would breathe into us the
breath of life that we may live. And that's exactly what he did
in verse 10. In verse 10, he says, and the
breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet. The scripture says that Christ
pulled David. David was speaking prophetically,
but he said, that he pulled me up out of the mire, out of the
clay, and he put my feet upon a solid rock, and he established
my goings, and he put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto
the Lord. That's what he does for his dry bones. Whenever he
speaks, whenever he sends his spirit in power, by the preaching
of the gospel, he stands them up, gives them breath to live,
and puts a new song in their heart, a new song in their mouth,
even praise unto God. He gives his dry bones the ability
to praise him. He gives them skin and flesh
like unto Christ himself. The scripture talks about when
the Lord formed a man out of the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostril, and man became a living soul. As I was talking
to Greg on the phone, he brought to my attention that he didn't
breathe into his mouth. and he became a living soul.
They said he breathed into his nostrils. Why is that? Well,
the mouth is what speaks. The mouth is where lies come
forth. But the Lord can see all the
way down through the mouth into an open sepulcher that was just
full of dry bones. So he breathed the breath of
life into his nostrils. That's all the nose can do is
breathe and smell. That's it. And when he gives
life, our nose breathes in the Lord Jesus Christ and we smell
that sweet smelling savor as we heard. That's what he does
for his people. That's why we've gathered here tonight in hopes
that he would do that for us. Where does this breath come from?
Where does this wind come from? Well, he tells us in verse nine,
come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain
that they may live. He takes these four winds and
he saves his people by them. And we're gonna see each one
of those in just a moment. In Ecclesiastes, turn with me
to Ecclesiastes chapter one. I wanna show you. We have already heard tonight
that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou canst not tell
from whether it come or whether it goeth, so as everyone that
is born of the Spirit. The Lord was speaking in Nicodemus in
John chapter three. And this is reiterated here in
Ecclesiastes chapter one in verse six says, the wind goeth towards
the south and turneth about unto the north, it whirleth about
continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. Now, it doesn't say its circuits
there. I found that interesting. It
calls it a his. That makes it a male. This is
the Holy Spirit of the Lord that goeth about where it listeth,
saving his people according to his purpose. That's what this
is. Verse seven says, all the rivers run into the seas, yet
the sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers
come. Thither they return again. All things are full of labor.
Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with
seeing or the ear filled with hearing the thing that has been. It is that which shall be and
that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no
new thing under the sun. There is no new way of salvation. The Lord saves his people according
to his breath, according to his purpose, the exact same way he's
always saved his people. I've heard someone say one time
that if it's new, it's not true. And if it's true, it's not new.
The Lord's always remained the truth throughout all of scripture.
And it's not something new. Men are trying to find something
new, aren't they? Always looking, now they're talking
about the God particle in different things. Maybe they've been talking
about that for a while. I'm just behind the times, but they're
trying to find, they're trying to give an explanation as to
why we got here without, acknowledging that there's a God. Because as
soon as man acknowledges that there's a God, then they have
to acknowledge that he's completely sovereign or he's not God. Men
do not want a God to reign over them. And so they try to find
a new way. There is no new way. Christ said,
I am the, that's singular. I am the way. He is the way for
his people. He blows upon them and causes
us to see. that we're nothing but dry bones,
among dry bones in a valley and bury dry bones at that. And then
what does he do? He clothes us in his righteousness. He gives us repentance towards
God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives us a new
song. He gives us breath to be alive
unto him. The believer is the only one
that can worship for that reason. That's what worship is, is looking
unto Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, acknowledging him
as God, and just confessing that he is all in salvation. The Lord's spirit quickens his dry
bones, doesn't he? Our us, he quickens us, his dry
bones. He died for a bunch of dry bones,
think about that. His elect, that was his people
that he was talking about in Ezekiel. It's his people, quickens
us, he makes it alive. You remember in Acts chapter
two and verse one, on the day of Pentecost when it was fully
come, what happened to them? He said they were all at one
accord in one place and suddenly there came from heaven as of
a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house. Boy, that's
our prayer tonight, isn't it? That the Lord would fill this
house, this house, this house, but this house. The Lord would
breathe upon me and the Lord would breathe upon you his spirit.
And that's what he did for these. And he goes on to say, and they
were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Only the Lord's people
are filled with the Holy Ghost. Only the Lord's people have been
breathed upon. Only the Lord's people breathe
in Christ. Now think about this. Whenever
we take a breath, we are, inhaling life-giving oxygen. And that's
what we do by faith as we're breathing in Christ. But all
that we can produce in and of ourself is what? It's just poison,
isn't it? Poison air. And that's what we
exhale, isn't it? Carbon dioxide. Is that not true? Carbon, that's all we can produce.
If you're locked in a room with carbon dioxide, you're gonna
die. We have to have oxygen. That's so true to the believer.
We have to have the oxygen of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sustaining
breath. that He gives us is what I'm
speaking of. This wind has to be blown upon us. He has to give
us mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, if I can put it that way, and
breathe upon His people. That's why we're here, is to
hear about His breath, His wind for His people. How does the Lord use the four
winds, as I mentioned before? The four winds are one, it's
the Holy Spirit. We're gonna see that. How does He use that?
Well, I'd like to look at them. Each and everyone, all four of
them. The first one I want to look at is the East wind and
it is the wind of judgment. It's the wind that was used to. It's the wind that's used to
reveal to us that we are dead bones that we are sinners. In Genesis Chapter 41. You remember
whenever Pharaoh had a dream and the dream troubled him and
he called for Joseph as it was purposed and he dreamed the dream
about the corn. The good corn that sprouted up
in the bad corn that came up in it. and it destroyed the good
corn, the good ears of grain. Well, David tells them in the
interpretation, he says unto him, behold, seven ears withered
thin and blasted with the east wind. The east wind does not
bring rain. It does not bring good things.
It is the same wind, if you remember, that was upon Jonah, when Jonah
was looking over Nineveh, he was seeing and wanting the judgment
of God to come upon them, but he called a vehement east wind
to blow upon the head of Jonah. Do you remember that? That was
something that caused Jonah to cry out and say, it'd be better
for me to live, it'd be better for me to die than to live. Now,
Jonah was feeling sorry for himself, but what I'm telling us tonight,
brethren, that if we see the judgment of God, We would know
it would be better for us to die than to live through the
judgment of God, if I can say it that way. But we have one
that did endure the judgment of God. We have one that did
endure the Lord's wrath, the Lord Jesus Christ. Another place that the east wind
is mentioned is whenever Moses stretched out his hand in Exodus
chapter 14, to part the Red Sea. The scripture says, and the Lord
caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night. That east wind is the judgment
of God. That's what it represents, the judgment of God. And it blew
upon the Son of God, upon the cross of Calvary, one time for
His people, and the Lord was satisfied by the death of His
Son. This is the only way that we
can pass through the wrath, which the Red Sea represents death
there. The Lord Jesus Christ was the one that endured the
wrath of God. And the only way that we can pass through death,
the only way that we can endure the wrath of God, is to be found
in Christ, just like the ones that were saved on the ark, as
I mentioned Sunday, I believe. We must be found in Him. The
east wind shows us what we are, and it points us to Christ. In
Jeremiah 4, verse 11, it says, At that time shall it be said
to this people and to Jerusalem, a dry wind of the high places
in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to
fan nor to cleanse. So this wind that he's speaking
of does not fan to make one feel better or to cleanse or help. "'Even a full wind from those
places shall come unto me. "'Now also will I give sentence
against them.'" Now, it talks about the wilderness here. And
the wilderness, if you look up geographically, is to the east
of Jerusalem. That's where this wind was coming
from. You know what else is east of Jerusalem? The Dead Sea. So
as this wind is coming to them, there's nothing good coming from
the Dead Sea. It's passing over unto Jerusalem,
and it is judgment for them. That's what the Lord is likening
the east wind to. We don't have hope in just the
east wind. Once we get through all four
winds, we're gonna see that this is what the Lord does by the
preaching of the gospel as he brings all of these winds together
and it goes forth as the Lord pleases and reveals Christ. This wind, this east wind reveals
that we have a need and it drives us to Christ. The second wind
is the west wind. This is his work. His mercy,
His grace that He has wrought towards His people. The West,
where does all of our rain come from, brethren? It comes out
of the West, doesn't it? All the rain, I mean, I understand
that sometimes it comes from other directions, but primarily
on this globe, most of the rain that we have comes from the West. Turn with me to 1 Kings chapter
18, 1 Kings chapter 18, and we'll see a picture of that. Now this was the, men call it
the showdown. It wasn't a showdown between
God and Bell. Bell's dead, there ain't no showdown there, but
calls for the 400 priests of Bell to go up on top of Mount
Carmel. I'm sure you remember the account. It hadn't rained
in three years. That's very important to know.
It hadn't rained in three years because of the part of the judgment
of the Lord had been taking place and the Lord withheld the rain. It, You see the men gathering
together there, and unto the noonday, the prophets of Bel
are crying out unto Bel, and Elijah begins mocking them, saying,
well, maybe he's on a journey. We'll call for him louder. Maybe
he's sleeping. Cry louder. You know, he's making
fun of them is what he's doing. And nothing happens. They are
not able to work up their God in order for something to happen.
And I want to be clear on this, brethren. That's what men in
religion do is they cry louder, only cutting themselves. That's
what those prophets are doing. They're only making things worse.
They're trying to work something up in the flesh. Well, what did
Elijah do? Well, he got, he got the altar
and the sacrifice and he wet the altar, didn't he, with water.
And when the fire of God fell upon that sacrifice, It burnt
up the sacrifice and it licked up the water. What is that a
picture of? That's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ dying for his people. That's a picture of the Lord's
wrath being satisfied because of the work of Christ. It's a
glorious picture. Right after that, the prophets
of Baal were slain by Elijah, 400 prophets. And the scripture
says, in 1 Kings 18, verse 43, He said to his servant, go up
now, look towards the sea. Now, if you look where Mount
Carmel is geographically, if he is looking, he's looking towards
the West at this point. He says, go look West towards
the sea. And he does so. And he went up
and looked and said, there is nothing. Now he's been told of
God, it's going to rain. And he says, go look. And he
says, well, I don't see anything. And he says, well, I want you
to go again. Let's keep reading. And he goes seven times. So that's
the number of perfection and completion, isn't it? Now understand,
it hadn't rained yet, and the only way the reign of God, the
goodness and mercy of God can rain down upon his people is
because of the previous sacrifice we just heard, absorbing the
wrath of God. It didn't rain, it didn't rain
the water of God, the life-giving water of God, until the fire
of God fell and was quenched. Do we see that? And it came to
pass at the seventh time that he said, behold, there arises
a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. Is that not the hand of Christ
that's coming for his people out of the West, bringing the
life giving rain? It's just a little hand, men
say. It's just a little hand. They
don't see how glorious and beautiful and wonderful our Lord really
is. They can't. You have to have faith in order
to see it. But this little cloud, the scripture says, Elijah heard,
and it was an abundance of rain coming. We're still talking about
the dry bones that are in the valley, and this is how the Lord
does it. His east wind blows and shows that we're nothing
but dry bones, but then the west wind brings the rain of God and
lets us know that all that he has to say to us is not judgment,
but goodness and mercy, and he reigns upon us by that west wind.
Do we see that? Exodus chapter 10, verse 19 tells
us of the west wind. It says, the Lord turned a mighty
strong west wind, which took away the locusts and cast them
into the Red Sea. There remaineth not one locust
in all the coast of Egypt. That was one of the plagues of
Egypt was locust, wasn't it? Those locusts represent our sin,
brethren. It said it covered the land of
Egypt, covered the land of Egypt and locusts. What does locusts
do? They consume every living thing, don't they? There's nothing
safe from a locust. They eat until there's nothing
left. That's what our sin does. Our sin literally destroys us,
separates us from God, and yet the west wind comes. We hear
the good news of the gospel. We hear the finished work of
Christ, and it blows upon the locus of our sin, cast them into
the Red Sea, it says here. That's the sea of death. He made
our sin to the depths of the sea, never to be remembered again.
That's what the west wind does. It shows that we have oneness
with God. Hosea chapter six, verse three
tells us, then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord,
he is going forth. His going forth is prepared as
the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter
and the former rain. You know why we gather together?
We want to be rained on by the Lord. We want the washing of
water by the word. We desire for it to come down
from the Lord and cleanse us. We desire to see Christ and to
be washed anew, made anew one more time. That's why we're here.
He does it by his west wind. Interesting part about rain is
that it evaporates, doesn't it? It comes down upon the earth
and we heard earlier that rivers flow into the ocean and yet it
comes back again and rains again and the rivers never dry up and
the oceans never emptied. How can those things be? Well,
that's the goodness and mercy of God. We come here and just
as we go out of this building in our unbelief, we are not able
to see the Lord. If we're sitting here worshiping,
we're trying to enter in and even then our minds are so in
all different directions, but yet if he allows us to drink
of that cup, if he allows us to have a little sip of the fountain
of living water, our spirits are revived, aren't they? And
we're able to see him. And yet we leave, and it seems
like that water that we have just evaporates. All that joy
that we have sitting here just evaporates. So we come one more
time and say, Lord, give us the latter rain. You've given us
the rain for yesterday. You've given us the manna for
yesterday. Lord, we need it again. Tell us how you died for your
people. Tell me how you put away my sin. Tell me how you were
successful in saving your people from their sin. Tell me how a
bunch of dry bones can live. I need to hear about this. Breathe
upon me Lord. That's our prayer, isn't it?
That's why we come here. We come here to hear H E R E. Come here to hear H E A R. Hear of Him. This is what he
does by his West wind. Now thirdly, the North wind. This is the life giving wind. This is the breath of God. It
comes from direct North. I would point straight up at
this point is where I'm talking about. It's not this direction.
Our building actually faces about Northeast. Somewhere is around
in there, but so it would be somewheres over there would be
North, but I'm talking about straight due North, which is
straight above us. He's higher than the heavens
and he is straight North and he says in Song of Solomon chapter
416 awake. O north wind and come, come thou
south and blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow.
Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits. Do we see that that's the prayer
that we pray when we come here, that the Lord would blow upon
this garden? this bunch of grass that we are, these dead bones
of grass. He still calls it his garden, though. Why? Because
he sees the lily of the valley when he looks at us. Lord, blow
upon this garden the breath of life. Cause us, cause these spices,
as he said, the sweet-smelling savor to be smelled in this place.
Cause that sweet-smelling savor to be pleasing unto our smell.
And then he just said that our Lord may eat. His pleasant fruits. The most amazing part to me is
the Lord takes a bunch of dry bones and He makes them not only
alive, but they bear fruit. They bear all manner of fruit
unto Him. What is the fruit that we bear? Well, it's the fruit
of the Spirit, is it not? It's literally confessing Christ
is all, and it causes us to love one another. It causes the gentleness
unto Him. It causes meekness and all these
things. But when He comes and sees us, it's because He sees
Christ. It's not that He sees our fruit
that we're producing. He sees the fruit, which is the
confession that Christ is all. So He sees the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's our hope. He uses this breath, his north
wind, to blow and cause all the dead limbs that are on this tree
to fall off. That's what we need. We're away
from this water just for a brief moment, but boy, we sure do get
a lot of dead limbs in a short period of time, don't we? We
need to be pruned. Our dead limbs need to be shook.
We need the breath of God to blow upon us, to shake our tree,
to get rid of all those dead limbs that are sucking the life
out of us, isn't it? That's how the trees work. Trees
can't produce fruit if they have a bunch of dead limbs, because
it sucks the life out of them. The Lord does that for his people
by his gospel. He breathes upon them and gets
rid of all those dead limbs. He makes us alive. He makes us
alive unto him. The last wind is the south wind.
South wind warms. The south wind warms these cold,
frozen hearts that are enmity against God. The Lord uses that
wind to melt these hearts of stone. He gives us a new heart.
Not only does he melt our heart, he gives us a brand new heart,
and he puts a new song in our mouth. He gives us the want to,
the want to, to worship Him. He gives us the desire to see
Him. He gives us the confession that
Christ is all. He does this by all of His winds,
truly, but this south wind, He causes it, He causes an east
wind to blow in the heaven, and by His power, He brought in the
south wind. The Lord causes this south wind
to warm His people. Is this world not cold unto you?
You're outside these walls, or you're outside, not under the
sound of the gospel, and you go out. Is the world cold to
you? It is to me. I get so tired of dealing with
things of this life, but I realize I need the south wind because
of the things that we deal with. The situations and circumstances
that we endure, brethren, are but for one purpose. It's to
the praise and glory of God, but it is to drive us to Christ.
It is to make us hungry for the south wind to blow and warm us
again. It's the fire of the Lord that
he gives when we come here to warm us, isn't it? It's his breath. It's his wind. I just quoted
a verse from Psalm 78, 26. I wanna quote it again to you.
It says, he caused an east wind to blow in the heaven. Now, I've
already told you that the east wind represents judgment. When
the Lord Jesus Christ died, that wind of judgment blew upon him
and God was satisfied. And because of this, he says,
and by his power, he brought in the south wind. The only way
that the Lord can breathe the breath of life into a bunch of
dead bones is because the judgment of God was satisfied. The only
way that he could cause us to live, cause the breath of God
to be breathed upon us is by the Lord satisfying all the demands
of a holy God. And he did so for his people. Now in closing, I want to turn
to Revelation chapter seven. Hold your place there. We're
in 1 Kings, so we'll go back to Ezekiel here in just a moment.
Turn to Revelation chapter 7. Revelation chapter 7 in verse
1. And after these things, I saw
four angels standing on the four corners of the earth. holding
the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow
on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another
angel ascending from the east, having the seal of God, the living
God. And he cried with a loud voice
to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and
the sea, saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the
trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their
foreheads. And I heard a number of them that were sealed, and
there were sealed 144,000 of all the tribes of the children
of Israel." This is the This is the north wind, the south
wind, the east wind, and the west wind gathered together,
and there's four angels that's present. And the east wind, which
is the judgment of God, tells the other winds, no, we do not
hurt. There is no judgment. The judgment
has been satisfied. We can't do anything to destroy
the earth until all those whom the Lord died for are brought
in with the seal. And that word sealed, that means
an envelope. That literally means sealed up.
That means put in the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that he'd done
that for the foundation of the world, but we have to be present
with him for the judgment of God to fall upon the earth. The
Lord will not cause his judgment to fall twice. Somebody asked
me about the tribulation. How's all this gonna work in
the tribulation, in the book of Revelation, all these futuristic
things? If the Lord allows his wrath to fall upon his people,
Christ was not sufficient. Do we see that? But he's not
going to cause his judgment to fall again because judgment has
been satisfied for the Lord's people. These ones that he's
speaking of, these 144,000, they've made religions off of that number.
The Jehovah Witness used that for a long time and they finally
had to disband it to some degree. Some of them still believe it,
but they said, well, surely there has to be more than that. I was
speaking to a Jehovah Witness one time and I said, who is going
to be there? And he looked at me and said,
God doesn't even know. He said that to me. I was taken
back. I couldn't believe that that
was the God that they served. didn't even know who was gonna
be there or who wasn't gonna be there. That's not God at all,
is it? Certainly not. These 144,000 are representatives
of every tribe of the Lord. It says clearly here, the tribes
of the children of Israel, but that's the elect of God. Do we
see that? That's the ones that were sealed. They've been sealed
in an envelope before the foundation of the world because of Christ.
They were presented unto the Father as perfectly righteous,
robed in his righteousness. They were presented unto him
When the fullness of time came, the Lord certainly had to come
and die, but we've already been glorified according to Romans
chapter eight. So these are they which the Lord
lived and died for. These are the ones that have
been sealed up. They've been secured. They bear his mark,
his name in their forehead, the name of Jesus Christ. Now let's
go back to Ezekiel 37. This is how he's done this. This
is how he sealed them. This is how he calls them. This
is how he keeps them. Ezekiel 37. Now look at verse number three. And he said unto me, son of man,
can these bones live? That's the question, isn't it?
That is the question whenever we're talking about life and
death. Can these bones live? Ask yourself that. Talking about
yourself, can these bones live? Our confession is, Lord, thou
knowest. If they're going to live, you're
going to have to make them live. If they're going to breathe,
if they're going to come alive, you're going to have to give
them life because they're very dry. That is us, isn't it, brethren? Dead in trespasses and in sin.
and we need the Lord to cause us to live. And he says in verse
number nine, then said he unto me, prophesy unto the wind, this
is how he does it, prophesy unto the wind, prophesy son of man
and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four
winds, oh breath and breathe upon these slain that they may
live. Slain by the law, slain under
Under the condemnation of the law, we were dead and trespassers
in sin. That's what the East Wind showed
us, that we are nothing but sinners. He gives us repentance towards
God. That's what that means. He's changed our mind about who
God is and about what and who we are. And then he gives us
faith. He does this by the west wind.
He calls us his gospel, his goodness and mercy to be breathed upon
us. He causes his grace to fall upon us in the person of his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives us the rain, the fountain
of living water to drink from that we may live, that we may
be found in him. He causes the south wind to blow,
and it melts our icy heart. It causes us to look to Him just
the same as the west wind does. But He gives us a fresh heart,
a new heart, a heart of faith to look unto Him. And He gives
us the north wind that breathes into these dead bones and quickens
us, and He makes us alive. He does this all at one time
by one breath, and the breath is the Holy Spirit. The breath
is the Holy Spirit. He does it by his spirit through
the preaching of his gospel. It's just one breath. It is four
different winds that the Lord's speaking up here, but it's all
just the one, the Holy Spirit of God. That's how he does it.
He breathes upon his people and makes us alive. Look in verse
10. So I prophesied and he commanded
me and the breath came into them and they lived and they stood
upon their feet an exceeding great army Brethren, they lived. If God breathes, you're gonna
live. That's the good news. Breathe upon me, Lord. If you've
never breathed upon me yet, breathe upon me this day and cause me
to live. He promised he would do that.
For who? For his people. Amen. Father, thank you for your
wind, your breath, that you breathe upon your people. Cause us to
put all our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the finished
work that he hath wrought. It's in Christ and we pray.