The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews

7/29/2019 The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews

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THE RESTORATION ANDCONVERSION OF THE JEWS

NO. 582

PREACHED ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 16TH, 1864,

BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,

In aid of the Funds of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Jews.

1 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, 2 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. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can thesebones live! And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. 4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones,

and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the L ORD. 5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones:

Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: 6 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. 7 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. 8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them,

and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. 9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the

wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord G OD: Come from the four winds, O

breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath

came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (Ezekiel 37:1-10).

This vision has been used, from the time ofJerome onwards, as a description of theresurrection, and certainly it may be soaccommodated with much effect. What avision of the great day the words picturebefore the minds eye! The great army of thequick, who once were dead, seem to start upas we read. Here, too, we have a very fit andappropriate question to be asked in a charnel-

house [a vault of dead bodies], Son of man,can these bones live? Looking down into thedark grave, or watching the sexton as hethrows up the mouldering relics, once instinctwith life, well may unbelief suggest theenquiryCan these bones live? Faith cannotat all times give a more satisfactory answerthan thisO Lord GOD, thou knowest. Butwhile this interpretation of the vision may be

very proper as an accommodation, it must bequite evident to any thinking person that thisis not the meaning of the passage. There is noallusion made by Ezekiel to the resurrection,and such topic would have been quite apartfrom the design of the prophets speech. Ibelieve he was no more thinking of theresurrection of the dead than of the buildingof St. Peters at Rome, or the emigration of

the Pilgrim Fathers. That topic is altogetherforeign to the subject in hand, and could notby any possibility have crept into theprophets mind. He was talking about thepeople of Israel, and prophesying concerningthem; and evidently the vision, according toGods own interpretation of it, was concern-ing them, and them alone, for these bonesare the whole house of Israel. It was not a


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The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews

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vision concerning all men, nor, indeed,concerning any men as to the resurrection ofthe dead, but it had a direct and specialbearing upon the Jewish people.

This passage, again, has been very

frequently, and I dare say very properly, usedto describe the revival of a decayed Church.This vision may be looked upon as descriptiveof a state of lukewarmness and spirituallethargy in a Church, when the question maybe sorrowfully askedCan these bones live?Can that dull minister wake up to livingpower? Can these cold deacons glow withholy heat? Can those unspiritual members riseto something like holy earnest selfsacrifice? Isit possible that the drowsy formal Church

should start up to real earnestness? Suchsuggestions might well have occurred to manyminds at the time of the Reformation. It didseem impossible, when Popery was in itspower, that spiritual life should ever againreturn to the Church. Piety seemed to be deadand buried, and the cloister, the clergy,superstition and deceit, like great graves, hadswallowed up everything that was good; butthe Lord appeared for his people, andbrought up the buried truth out of its grave,

and once more in every part of the knownworld the name of Jesus Christ was lifted up,and sound doctrine was preached. So was itin our own country. When both theEstablishment and Dissent had fallen intospiritual death, we might well have said Can these bones live? But Whitfield andWesley were raised up by God, and theyprophesied upon the dry bones, and up theystood, filled with the Spirit of God, anexceeding great army. Let the crowds of

Kingsdown, and the multitudes onKennington Common, tell of the quickeningpower of Jesus name. Decayed Churches canmost certainly be revived by the preaching ofthe Word, accompanied by the coming of theheavenly breath from the four winds. OLord, send us such revivals now, for many ofthy Churches need them: they are almost asdead as the corpses which sleep around them

in the graveyard. But while we admit this tobe a very fitting accommodation of our text,yet we are quite convinced that it is not tothis that the passage refers. It would bealtogether alien to the prophets train ofthought to be thinking about the restoration

of fallen zeal and the rekindling of expiringlove; he was not considering the Reformationeither of Luther or of Whitfield, or about therevival of one Church or of another. No, hewas talking of his own people, of his ownrace, and of his own tribe. He surely ought tohave known his own mind, and led by theHoly Spirit he gives us as an explanation ofthe vision, not Thus saith the Lord, mydying Church shall be restored, but I willbring my people out of their graves, and bring

them into the land of Israel.

With very great propriety, too, this passagehas been used for the comforting of believersin their dark and cloudy days. When theyhave lost their comforts, when their spiritualjoys have drooped like withering flowers,when they have been no longer able to

Read their titles clearTo mansions in the skies,

they have been reminded that God couldreturn to them in grace and mercy, that thedry bones could live, and should live; that theSpirit of God could again come upon hispeople; that even at the time when they wereready to give up all hope and lie down indespair, he could come and so quicken them,that the poor trembling cowards should beturned into soldiers of God, and should standupon their feet an exceeding great army. Nograve of grief can hold the immortal joy of a

believer: on the third day it shall rise again,for, like the Lord who gave it, it shall neversee corruption. Bone to his bone shall yourcomforts come together, and an army of joysshall live in your soul. The passage certainlymay be so used without violent wresting, andmight thus yield much comfort to the peopleof God; but still we take the liberty of sayingthat this is not the drift of the prophet, and


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that we do not believe he was thinking ofanything of the kind, but that he wasspeaking only of his own people, his ownkinsmen according to the flesh.

Once more. There is no doubt that we

have in this passage a most striking picture ofthe restoration of dead souls to spiritual life.Men, by nature, are just like these dry bonesexposed in the open valley. The wholespiritual frame is dislocated; the sap andmarrow of spiritual life has been dried out ofmanhood. Human nature is not only dead,but, like the bleaching bones which have longwhitened in the sun, it has lost all trace of thedivine life. Will and power have bothdeparted. Spiritual death reigns undisturbed.

Yet the dry bones can live. Under thepreaching of the Word the vilest sinners canbe reclaimed, the most stubborn wills can besubdued, the most unholy lives can besanctified. When the holy breath comesfrom the four winds, when the divine Spiritdescends to own the Word, then multitudes ofsinners, as on Pentecosts hallowed day, standup upon their feet, an exceeding great army,to praise the Lord their God. But, mark you,this is not the first and proper interpretation

of the text; it is indeed nothing more than avery striking parallel case to the one beforeus. It is not the case itself; it is only a similarone, for the way in which God restores anation is, practically, the way in which herestores an individual. The way in whichIsrael shall be saved is the same by which anyone individual sinner shall be saved. It is not,however, the one case which the prophet isaiming at; he is looking at the vast mass ofcases, the multitudes of instances to be found

among the Jewish people, of graciousquickening, and holy resurrection. His firstand primary intention was to speak of them,and though it is right and lawful to take apassage in its widest possible meaning, sinceno Scripture is of private interpretation, yetI hold it to be treason to Gods Word toneglect its primary meaning, and constantlyto say Such-and-such is the primary

meaning, but it is of no consequence, and Ishall use the words for another object. Thepreacher of Gods truth should not give upthe Holy Ghosts meaning; he should takecare that he does not even put it in the background. The first meaning of a text, the

Spirits meaning, is that which should bebrought out first, and though the rest mayfairly spring out of it, yet the first senseshould have the chief place. Let it have theuppermost place in the synagogue, let it belooked upon as at least not inferior, either ininterest or importance, to any other meaningwhich may come out of the text.

The meaning of our text, as opened up bythe context, is most evidently, if words mean

anything, first, that there shall be a politicalrestoration of the Jews to their own land andto their own nationality; and then, secondly,there is in the text, and in the context, a mostplain declaration, that there shall be aspiritual restoration, a conversion in fact, ofthe tribes of Israel.

I. THERE IS TO BE A POLITICALRESTORATION OF THE JEWS.

Israel is now blotted out from the map ofnations; her sons are scattered far and wide;her daughters mourn beside all the rivers ofthe earth. Her sacred song is hushed; no kingreigns in Jerusalem; she bringeth forth nogovernors among her tribes. But she is to berestored; she is to be restored as from thedead. When her own sons have given up allhope of her, then is God to appear for her.She is to be reorganized; her scattered bonesare to be brought together. There will be a

native government again; there will again bethe form of a body politic; a state shall beincorporated, and a king shall reign. Israelhas now become alienated from her ownland. Her sons, though they can never forgetthe sacred dust of Palestine, yet die at ahopeless distance from her consecratedshores. But it shall not be so forever, for hersons shall again rejoice in her: her land shall


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be called Beulah, for as a young man marrietha virgin so shall her sons marry her. I willplace you in your own land, is Godspromise to them. They shall again walk uponher mountains, shall once more sit under hervines and rejoice under her fig-trees. And they

are also to be re-united. There shall not betwo, nor ten, nor twelve, but oneone Israelpraising one God, serving one king, and thatone king the Son of David, the descendedMessiah. They are to have a nationalprosperity which shall make them famous;nay, so glorious shall they be that Egypt, andTyre, and Greece, and Rome, shall all forgettheir glory in the greater splendor of thethrone of David. The day shall yet come whenall the high hills shall leap with envy, because

this is the hill which God hath chosen, whenZions shrine shall again be visited by theconstant feet of the pilgrim; when her valleysshall echo with songs, and her hill-tops shalldrop with wine and oil. If there be meaning inwords this must be the meaning of thischapter. I wish never to learn the art oftearing Gods meaning out of his own words.If there be anything clear and plain, the literalsense and meaning of this passagea meaningnot to be spirited or spiritualized awaymustbe evident that both the two and the tentribes of Israel are to be restored to their ownland, and that a king is to rule over them.Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will takethe children of Israel from among theheathen, whither they be gone, and willgather them on every side, and bring theminto their own land: and I will make them onenation in the land upon the mountains ofIsrael; and one king shall be king to them all;

and they shall be no more two nations,neither shall they be divided into twokingdoms any more at all [Ezekiel 37:21-22].

I am not now going into millennialtheories, or into any speculation as to dates. Ido not know anything at all about suchthings, and I am not sure that I am called tospend my time in such researches. I am rathercalled to minister the gospel than to open

prophecy. Those who are wise in such thingsdoubtless prize their wisdom, but I have notthe time to acquire it, nor any inclination toleave soul-winning pursuits for less arousingthemes. I believe it is a great deal better toleave many of these promises, and many of

these gracious out-looks of believers, toexercise their full force upon our minds,without depriving them of their simple gloryby aiming to discover dates and figures. Letthis be settled, however, that if there bemeaning in words, Israel is yet to be restored.

Yet not in vainoer Israels landThe glory yet will shine;And he, thy once rejected King,Messiah, shall be thine.

His chosen Bride, ordaind with himTo reign oer all the earth,Shall first be framed, are thou shalt knowThy Saviors matchless worth.

Then thou, beneath the peaceful reignOf Jesus and his Bride,Shalt sound his grace and glory forth,To all the earth beside.

The nations to thy glorious light,O Zion, yet shall throng,

And all the listning islands waitTo catch the joyful song.

But there is a second meaning here.

II. ISRAEL IS TO HAVE A SPIRITUALRESTORATIONOR A CONVERSION.

Both the text and the context teach this.The promise is that they shall renounce theiridols, and, behold, they have already done so.Neither shall they defile themselves any morewith their idols. Whatever faults the Jewmay have besides, he certainly has noidolatry. The Lord thy God is one God, is atruth far better conceived by the Jew than byany other man on earth except the Christian.Weaned for ever from the worship of allimages, of whatever sort, the Jewish nationhas now become infatuated with traditions or


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duped by philosophy. She is to have,however, instead of these delusions, aspiritual religion: she is to love her God.They shall be my people, and I will be theirGod. The unseen but omnipotent Jehovah isto be worshipped in spirit and in truth by his

ancient people; they are to come before himin his own appointed way, accepting theMediator whom their sires rejected; cominginto covenant relation with God, for so ourtext tells usI will make a covenant of peacewith them, and Jesus is our peace, thereforewe gather that Jehovah shall enter into thecovenant of grace with them, that covenant ofwhich Christ is the federal head, thesubstance, and the surety. They are to walk inGods ordinances and statutes, and so exhibit

the practical effects of being united to Christwho hath given them peace. All thesepromises certainly imply that the people ofIsrael are to be converted to God, and thatthis conversion is to be permanent, for thetabernacle of God is to be with them, theMost High is, in an especial manner, to havehis sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore; so that whatever nations mayapostatize and turn from the Lord in theselatter days, the nation of Israel never can, forshe shall be effectually and permanentlyconverted, the hearts of the fathers shall beturned with the hearts of the children untothe Lord their God, and they shall be thepeople of God, world without end.

We look forward, then, for these twothings. I am not going to theorize upon whichof them will come first, whether they shall berestored first, and converted afterwards, orconverted first, and then restored. They are to

be restored, and they are to be converted too.Let the Lord send these blessings in his ownorder, and we shall be well content whicheverway they shall come. We take this for our joyand our comfort, that this thing shall be, andthat both in the spiritual and in the temporalthrone, the King Messiah shall sit, and reignamong his people gloriously.

Now I come to the practical part of mysermon this evening:

III. THE MEANS OF THATRESTORATION.

Looking at this matter, we are very apt tosay, How can these things be? How can the

Jews he converted to Christ? How can they bemade into a nation? Truly, the case is quite ashopeless as that of the bones in the valley!How shall they cease from worldliness, orrenounce their constant pursuit of riches?How shall they be weaned from their bigotedattachment to their Talmudic traditions?How shall they be lifted up out of thathardness of heart, which makes them hate the

Messiah of Nazareth, their Lord and King?How can these things be? The prophet doesnot say it cannot be; his unbelief is not sogreat as that, but at the same time, he scarcelyventures to think that it can ever be possible.He very wisely, however, puts back thequestion upon his GodO Lord GOD, thouknowest. Now some of you are verysanguine about this to-night, and you areexpecting to see the Jews converted very soon,perhaps in a month or two. I wish you maysee it as soon as your desires would date it.Others of us are not very sanguine, but take amore gloomy view of a long future of woes.Well, let us both together come before Godto-night, and say, O Lord GOD, thouknowest; and if thou knowest it, Lord, wewill be content to leave the secret with thee;only tell us what thou wouldst have us to do;we ask not food for speculation, but we doask for work; we ask for something by whichwe may practically show that we really dolove the Jew, and that we would bring him toChrist. In answer to this, the Lord says to hisservants, Prophesy upon these bones, sothat our duty to-night, as Christians, is toprophesy upon these bones, and we shall thensee Gods purpose fulfilled, when we obeyGods precept.


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I want you to observe that there are twokinds of prophesying spoken of here. First,the prophet prophesies to the boneshere ispreaching; and next, he prophesies to the fourwindshere is praying. The preaching has itsshare in the work, but it is the praying which

achieves the result, for after he hadprophesied to the four winds, and not before,the bones began to live. All that the preachingdid was to make a stir, and to bring the bonestogether, but it was the praying which did thework, for then God the Holy Ghost came togive them life.

Preaching and praying, then, are the twoheads of this part of my sermon to-night, andwe will speak upon each briefly.

1. It is the duty and the privilege of theChristian Church, to preach the gospel to the

Jew, and to every creature, and in so doingshe may safely take the vision before us as herguide.

She may take it as her guide, first, as tomatter. What are we to preach? The text sayswe are to prophesy, and assuredly everymissionary to the Jews should especially keepGods prophecies very prominently before the

public eye. It seems to me that one way inwhich the Jewish mind might be laid hold of,would be to remind the Jews right often ofthat splendid future which both the Old andthe New Testaments predict for Israel. Everyman has a tender side and a warm hearttowards his own nation, and if you tell himthat in your standard book there is arevelation made that that nation is to act agrand part in human history, and is, indeed,to take the very highest place in the

parliament of nations, then the mansprejudice is on your side, and he listens toyou with the greater attention. I would notcommend, as some do, the everlastingpreaching of prophesy in every congregation,but a greater prominence should be given toprophecies in teaching the Jews than amongany other people.

But still, the main thing which we have topreach about is Christ. Depend upon it, dearbrethren, the best sermons which we everpreach are those which are fullest of Christ

Jesus the Son of David and the Son of God;Jesus the suffering Savior by whose stripes we

are healed; Jesus able to save unto theuttermosthere is the most suitable subject forGentiles, and God has fashioned all heartsalike, and therefore, this is also the noblesttheme for Jews. Paul loved his countrymen;he was no simpleton; he knew what was thebest weapon with which to assail andovercome their prejudices, and yet he couldsay, I determined not to know anythingamong you save Jesus Christ and himcrucified. Lift up the Messiah, then, both

before Jew and Gentile. Tell of Marys Son,the eternal Son of God, the Man of Nazareth,who is none other than the incarnate Word,God made flesh, and dwelling amongst us.Preach his hallowed lifethe righteousness ofhis people; declare his painful deaththeputting away of all their sins. Vindicate hisglorious resurrection, the justification of hispeople; tell of his ascent on high, theirtriumph over the world and sin; declare hissecond advent, his glorious coming, to makehis people glorious in the glory which he hathwon for them, and Christ Jesus, as he is thuspreached, shall surely be the means of makingthese bones live. Let this preaching resoundwith sovereign mercy; let it always have in itthe clear and distinct ring of free grace. I wasthinking as I read this chapter just now, thatof all the sermons which were ever preached,this sermon to the dry bones is the mostCalvinistic, the most full of free grace, of any

which were ever delivered. If you will notice ityou will find that there is not an if, or abut, or a condition in it; and as for free-will,there is not even a mention of it. It is all inthis fashion Thus saith the Lord God untothese bones: Behold, I will cause breath toenter into you, and ye shall live; and I will laysinews upon you, and will bring up fleshupon you, and cover you with skin, and put


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breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shallknow that I am the Lord. You see it is allshalls, and wills, and covenant purposes.It is all Gods decrees declared, and declared,too, as if there were no possibility of mansresisting them. He does not say, You dry

bones, you shall live if you like, you shall ifyou are willing. He doth not say to them,You shall stand upright and be an exceedinggreat army if it pleases you to consent to mypower. No, but it is, I will, and you shall.As for will, it is altogether put out of thequestion, for how shall the dead have a willin the matter? And so, dear friends, I wouldhave the gospel preached both to the Jew andthe Gentile with a very clear and distinct noteof free, sovereign, almighty grace. Man has awill, and God never ignores that will, but byhis almighty grace he blessedly leads it insilken fetters. He never stops to ask that willsconsent when he comes forth upon hiserrands of effectual grace, but he wins thatconsent by the sweet persuasions of his ownomnipotent love. He comes arrayed in therobes of his omnipotent grace, and the mosthardened of rebels see at once such anattractive force in the love of God in Christ,that with full consent against their ancientwills they yield themselves captives to thegrace of God. I do not believe that the Jews,or anybody else, will ever be converted, as ausual thing, by keeping back any of thedoctrines of grace. We must have Gods truth,and the whole of it; and more distinctutterances concerning evangelical doctrinesand the grace of God are required both for

Jews and for Gentiles. Preach, preach, preach,then, but let it be the preaching of Christ, and

the proclamation of free grace. The Church, Isay, has a model here as to the matter ofpreaching.

And I am certain that she has also a modelhere as to her manner of preaching. Howshall we preach the gospel? Was Ezekiel to dowhat some of my hyper-Calvinistic brethrensay preachers ought to doto warn the sinner,but never to invite him? Was Ezekiel to go

and talk to these bones, but never to say aword to them by way of command? Was heto explain the way of salvation, but never bidthem walk in it? No; after he had declaredcovenant purposes, he was then to say, Thussaith the Lord, ye dry bones live. And so the

message of the gospel minister when he hasdeclared the purposes of divine grace, is tosay to sinners, Thus saith the Lord, believe inthe Lord Jesus Christ; trust Christ, and youare saved. Whoever you may be, Jew orGentile, whether your speech be that of theland of Canaan or of a Gentile tongue,whether you spring of Shem, Ham, or

Japheth, trust Christ, and you are saved; trusthim, then, ye dry bones, and live. Witheredarm, be outstretched; lame men, leap; blind

eyes, see; ye dead, dry bones, live. Themanner of our preaching is to be by way ofcommand, as well as by way of teaching.Repent and be converted, every one of you.Lay hold on eternal life. Seek, and ye shallfind; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thoushalt be saved.

We have a model here, moreover, as to ouraudience. We are not to select our

congregation, but we are to go where Godsends us; and if he should send us into theopen valley, where the bones are very dry, weare to preach there. I trust that my brethrenof the Society for the Propagation of theGospel among the Jews will never confinetheir labors to the good Jew, the respectable

Jew, the enlightened Jewlet them seek afterhim among the restbut I hope they will alsoseek after the ignorant, the degraded, thepoor, and the fallen. The Churchs best

harvests have generally been reaped amongthe poor. For every grain of wheat which hasfructified upon the hill-sides of wealth,thousands have sprung up to bring forthmuch fruit in the valleys of poverty andobscurity. The poor have the gospelpreached to themthis is the gospels pride;the poor receive the gospelthis is its success.Preach to the dry bones, then. Do not say,


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Such-and-such a man is too bigoted; thecase rests not with him, nor with his bigotry,but with God. These bones were very dry, butyet they lived. There is very little to chooseafter all, between one man and another, whenall are dead; a little difference in the dryness

does not come to much account when all aredead in sin. That some men are drunken andsome are sober, that some men are debauchedand some are chaste, makes a very greatdifference in the moral and civil world, but avery little difference indeed in the spiritualworld, for there the same things happen tothem both. If they believe not they shall alikebe lost, and if they trust Jesus Christ theyshall alike be saved. Let not, therefore, thegreater viciousness of a people, or their

greater hardness of heart, ever stand in ourway, but let us say to them, dry as they are,Ye dry bones, live.

And here, again, we have another lesson asto the preachers authority. If you willobserve, you will see the prophet says, Hearthe Word of the Lord. We are to go neitherto Jew nor to Gentile upon our own errand,or bearing our own words. I have no right tocommand a man to believe this or that,

except I be an ambassador of God, and then,with Gods authority to direct and empowerme, I speak no longer as a man following hisown wit, but as the mouth of God. So letevery one of us go, when we are trying to savesouls, feeling the hand of God upon us, witha soul big with anxious thoughts and heavinghigh with earnest desires: let us speak

As though we neer might speak again,As dying men to dying men,

taking hold upon Gods arm, and beseechinghim to work by us and through us for thegood of men. Remember, Christian, howeverhumble you may be, when you speak God sWord, that Word has an authority about itwhich will leave a man without excuse if herejects it. Always put to your fellow-man thetruth which you hold dear, not as a thingwhich he may play with or may do what he

likes with, which is at his option to choose orto neglect as he sees fit; but put it to him as itis in truth, the Word of God; and be notsatisfied unless you warn him that it is at hisown peril that he rejects the invitation, andthat on his own head must be his blood if he

turns aside from the good word of thecommand of God.

Thus, then, we have, I think, all thedirections which are necessary for us topreach; and what this Society, and every otherSociety which aims at the conversion ofsinners has to do, is to go and preach, preach,preach, not spending too much upon printing,nor upon schools, nor ecclesiastical buildings,but preaching the Word; for after all, this is

the battering-ram which is to shake the gatesof hell and break its iron bars. God haschosen the foolishness of preaching that hemight by it save those who believe. Preachingis the blast of the rams horn ordained to level

Jericho, and the sound of the silver trumpetappointed to usher in the jubilee. It is God schariot of fire for bearing souls to heaven,and his two-edged sword to smite the hosts ofhell. His ordained servants are at oncewarriors and builders, and the Word serves

them both for spear and trowel. Preach, then,from morning till night, at every time, and onall occasions, the unsearchable riches ofChrist, and Israel shall yet live. I cannotleave this point without noticing how theprophet describes the effect of his preachingthere was a voice, and there was a noise. Wasthis the noise of Gods voice going with mansvoice? or was this the noise of the bonesthemselves creeping one over another? Doesthis represent opposition on the part of those

preached to? Truly opposition is always agood sign. When you can get a man to opposeyou, you may have some hope of him. If hehas enough religious thought to try and refutewhat you bring before him, you may bethankful. Is this stir, then, the stir ofopposition, or is it the stir of enquiry? Doesnot the creeping of the bones togetherrepresent the people coming together to hear,


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to talk with one another, to reason aboutdivine things? When the various muscles, andthe flesh come upon the bones, does thisrepresent the appearance of certain converts,destined to be the leaders of others? Are thesesinews and muscles the representatives of men

who are to move the rest of the bodycorporate by-and-by? It may be so, and wemay expect to see as Christ is preachedamong Jews or Gentiles, more and more stirand excitementthe people coming together ingreater numbers, and the whole massfermenting by the force of the leaven.Anything is better than stagnation: of apersecutor I have quite as much hope as of aquiet despiser.

2.But now we come to speak of that inwhich you can all take a part. Perhaps youcannot take a part in preaching the Word,though I would that ye all could; and I covetfor you all the best gifts; but in the secondform of prophesying you can all take yourshare. After the prophet had prophesied tothe bones, he was to prophesy to the winds.He was to say to the blessed Spirit, the Life-giver, the God of all grace, Come from thefour winds, O breath, and breathe upon these

slain, that they may live. Preaching alonedoth little; it may make the stir, it may bringthe people together. There is an attractivenessabout the gospel which will draw the peopleto hear it; and there is, moreover, a forceabout it which will excite them, for it isquick and powerful, and sharper than anytwo-edged sword; but there is no life-givingpower in the gospel of itself apart from theHoly Spirit. The breath must first blow, andthen these bones shall live. Let us betake

ourselves much to this form of prophesying.Brethren and sisters in Christ, you who carefor Israel, go before the Lord now andhenceforth, in earnest, importunate prayer.Strive to feel more than ever conscious of theutter indispensability of this matter. Feel thatwithout Christ you can do nothing. In vainyour society, your machinery, your commit-tee, your secretaries, your collectors, your

contributors, your missionaries, without theHoly Spirit. Blow ye your trumpet, and tellout loudly what you have done; ye have sownmuch, but ye shall reap little unless ye aretrusting in the Spirit of God. There is alwaysthis danger to which we are exposed, though

some, I know, think that it is a danger whichdoes not existI mean the peril of looking tothe strength or the weakness of theinstrumentality, and being either puffed up bythe one or dejected by the other. You areenough for your work if God be with you;and if you be but a handful you are too manyfor your work if God be not with you. Godnever objecteth to human weakness, when hecomes to work he prefers it, for it makes aplatform for divine power. What did he say to

Gideon The people are too many for me;he did not say that they were too few. Younever find a case in Scripture, of Gods sayingthat the people were too few, but it was, Thepeople are too many for me. Mans strengthis more in Gods way than mans weakness.Nay, human weakness, inasmuch as it makeselbow-room for Gods strength, is Godschosen instrument. Therefore will I glory ininfirmities, said the apostle, that the powerof God may rest upon me [II Cor12:9]. Restthen, upon the Holy Spirit as indispensable,and go to God with this for your cry, Comefrom the four winds, O breath, and breatheupon these slain, that they may live.

Observe, beloved, that this second prophe-sying of Ezekiel is just as bold and as full offaith as the first. He seems to have no doubt,but speaks as though he could command thewind. Come, saith he, and the wind cometh.We want more faith in God. When we are

engaged in any spiritual work we shall alwaysfind our success proportioned to our faith.Little faith, slender harvests; much faith,plenteous sheaves. Little fishes come inslender numbers to Little-faiths net; butstrong confidence can hardly hold all thegreat fishes which load her boat. I will notask for your society, or for you any furtherboon than greater faith, for, getting greater


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faith you have divine strength and suresuccess. The Spirit always works with faithfulmen. My dear friends, the Spirit of God ispoured out. He abideth in his Church as theever present Comforter. We are not to lookupon his influences as a boon which we

cannot reach, for he is here waiting to give usall we need. He dwells in the midst of hispeople, and we have but to cry unto him, andhe will manifest his mighty power, and weshall have souls saved, both Jews andGentiles. Let your prayer then, be with asense of how much you need it, but yet with afirm conviction that the Holy Spirit will mostsurely come in answer to your prayers. And,then, let it be earnest prayer. That Comefrom the four winds, O breath, reads to me

like the cry, not of one in despair, but of onewho is full of a vehement desire, gratifiedwith what he sees, since the bones have cometogether, and have been mysteriously clothedwith flesh, but now crying passionately forthe immediate completion of the miracleCome from the four winds, O breath, andbreathe upon these slain, that they may live.Here is continual vehemence and force here;here is just that which makes a prayerprevalent. O, let us cry mightily unto God!We cannot expect to see great things unlesswe do cry to him, but we are only limited byour prayers. We are not straitened in him; weare only straitened in ourselves. We might seegreater things if we could but believe. Allthings are possible to him that believeth, butas of old, the Lord Jesus cannot do manymighty things now-a-days, because of ourunbelief. We hamper the arm of grace; we do,as it were, restrain the Almighty energy. O forgreater faith, to believe that nations may beborn in a day, that multitudes may be turnedunto God at once, and we shall yet see itseewhat our fathers never saw, and what ourimaginations have never dreamed. We shallleap from victory to victory, marching onfrom one triumph to another, until we meetthe all-glorious Savior. Charging foeman afterfoeman, and routing army after army, we

shall go on, conquering and to conquer, untilwe salute him who cometh upon the whitehorse of triumph, followed by all the armiesof heaven, Brethren, be of good courage inyour work of faith and labor of love, for it isnot, and shall not be in vain in the Lord.

I address some to-night, I know, who haveno interest in what I have been saying, forthey are not subjects of Messiah themselves.Remember, faith is a sign of your allegianceto him. Trust Christ, and you are saved. Trust

Jesus Christ, and you are delivered fromdivine wrath and from the power of yournatural passions. The Lord grant you aresurrection to-night, O you who are dead insin, and his name shall have all the praise.

Our friends here have for some little timebeen in a small way assisting this Society bytheir contributions; they, therefore, are wellacquainted. with it. I have not time thisevening to enter into details about it, but Imay just say that this Society has for a longtime done a good work among the Jewishpeople; and I ask you to contribute to thisamong other good works as you feel movedto do whenever opportunity occurs.

C. H. Spurgeon

The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews

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