an army of life

Yesterday I spoke at a platform service for "I Am My Brother's Keeper," a local motorcycle ministry.  Several of us spoke on the the 12 tribes of Jacob.  I was asked to speak on Gad.  Here's what I said...

Gad.  His name means “a troop is coming.”  Gad’s destiny is to be attacked and to attack.  Gad was a military man.

Did you know that God is creating an army?  Most armies are instruments of death.  That is the nature of warfare as we know it.  But the army God is putting together is an army of life…bringing life to a world that is dead.

Ezekiel 37 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture.  Listen to these words:

The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"  I said, "Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

⁴ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Notice the current situation that Ezekiel enters into: It is full of death.  And not just death, but death plus time.  There were lots of bone…and they were very dry.

Then God commands Ezekiel to speak the Word of the Lord to this valley of death.  No matter how dead the world is, and no matter how long death has been there, the Word of God can change the situation.  In order to bring life to a dead world, we must know God’s Word.  His Word must live in us.  And we must share that Word with the world.  That’s the only way our world can live again. 

Ezekiel was responsible to speak the Word of God; it was God’s Spirit who was responsible to bring life.  Ezekiel had to do his part of prophesying; God had to do his part of breathing life into these bones.  This is important for us to understand because we cannot change our world in our own strength or wisdom or power.  We are incapable, no matter how smart we are or powerful we can become, of changing human hearts.  Only God can do that.

But if we do our part – share God’s Word with our world – I believe God will do his part of breathing life into those people who hear and receive our message.  And as we partner with God, the world can become different and better as more and more hearts are changed by God and more and more people come to life in him.

A troop is coming.  Join up with the God’s army of life and be all you can be for him!