Allen Jackson - Prophesy Being Fulfilled - Part 2
There are real expressions against what you stand for as a Christ follower that would like to remove your voice from our academic institutions and our business institutions and our governmental institutions. I mean, that's real. It's not an imagination. Freedom of speech has been so limited. It's a shadow of what it once was. All those things are true, but we don't have to wring our hands filled with anxiety and fear. We could live in the peace of God. But it's gonna take a different cadence, a different response from us. If they tell us there's a tornado in Kentucky, we go look for a safe space.
My opinion of safe spaces was formed when I was a child. We used to have drills for nuclear attacks. Did anybody ever do that? Do you remember what they coached us to do? For those of you that never had the experience, they told us, Nate, to get under our desk. Because in the case of some megaton nuclear device landing in the principal's office, we were gonna be golden under our desks. Grateful we never tested the theory. So maybe the fear has been built into us from our youth. But I think we're gonna need a different kind of courage and a different kind of boldness.
I was amazed at their ability to continue to live forward in the midst of the threats and the isolation. They're as polarized as we are. Their media is inside out and upside down. Truth is as lost there as it is here. The crisis has brought some sense of unity to them, and I believe will give them an extension of freedom. We haven't found our way to that truth yet. We're still living in this ocean of lies and deception and manipulation, and have a very limited appetite for the truth if it's inconvenient for us. Let's just focus just a moment and look at a prophetic perspective. I got a few minutes left. We may not finish your outline. That's a shame. You're shocked.
Ezekiel 37. I won't read the whole passage. It's a remarkable passage of scripture. To some of you, I'm sure it's familiar. To others, less so. But I'll start with verse 1. "The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and sat me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. And 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. And he asked me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I said, 'O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.'"
I'm amazed at Ezekiel's wisdom. God asked a question of him, and he said, you know, "Only you would know that". Wow. "I don't know" is an acceptable answer. It is. And then the Lord said, "Prophesy to these bones". "Ezekiel, I need you to do something. I need you to use your words". "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones.'" Now, there's a trifecta here of God, things God says he will do.
"'I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 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.' 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. And I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them".
Maybe I will read the whole thing. It's a good story. "And 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 from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into the slain, that they may live".' So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; and they came to life and stood up on their feet, the vast army". I was intrigued by that. It wasn't a vast group of people to study Torah. It wasn't even a vast group of people to worship. It was an army. I'm not encouraging violence. I'm not coaching you to be belligerent. But I'm telling you there's a conflict in our world, and it isn't about nations or economies or ideologies. It's spiritual.
"And then he said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; and we're cut off". Therefore prophesy and say to them: "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I'm going to open your graves and bring you up from them".'"
Now, here's another trifecta. Three more things God says he will do after he's restored life. "I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I'll put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. And then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD". Most scholars would suggest to you that it's a prophetic picture of the restoration of the Jewish people to their historic homeland, the promise God made to them. And it's as impossible as a valley of dry bones being brought to life again. It can only be understood and can only be explained through the engagement of the Spirit of God.
God's not finished with the Jewish people yet. Before we're done, they'll have a revelation of Jesus that will change the lives of untold numbers of them. They will take the forefront on the advancement of the gospel as we approach the close of the age. The goal for the Jewish people isn't for them to convert to anything. The goal is that they would recognize Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah. But there's a phrase in that passage that has captured my heart, and it's really what I wanna spend the moments I have left with you talking about, and we're gonna carry it forward in the next session.
In that first verse of Ezekiel 37, "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord". And I have been walking around with that in my heart these last several days. I believe there's a change coming for us. I know it's an election season, and we're drinking the Kool-Aid once again that an election is going to change us. And elections have consequences. I will readily admit that. And you have to participate in the process. It's wrong not to. It's disobedient not to. So I'm not trying to diminish that. But how many elections do we have to have to wake up the week after the election to realize we're still here?
I would suggest we need to be as dependent upon the help and the interaction of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis as we are interdependent upon technology. And let's just take one subset of that to help us imagine a more robust engagement with the Spirit of God. If we just imagined our cell phones, what would your life be like if you didn't have access to that? Our phones have GPS systems on them. They tell us where to go, where to turn, where to stop, when to reroute. They do it when we're in our automobiles. They do it when we're walking the streets of cities we're not familiar with. We're heavily dependent upon the communication apps that we have, the different ways to send messages and to communicate our ideas and to share our pictures.
It has enabled us to vacation competitively. We anticipate instant answers. If we don't know, we ask Rabbi Google. We have automatic location awareness for ourselves and our families. They do some strange things with your technology when you're in the Middle East. And for two or three days, they were showing that all of us were at the Beirut Airport. And more than one person was tracking a loved one that was in our group, and we had a couple of panicked calls says, "Are you okay"? And we had our agreement about the bunkers and the MREs, so we were trying to keep a low-key. And I said, "Yes, why"? And they said, "Well, the GPS says you're at the Beirut airport. Not a great neighborhood".
Our phones give us 24/7 funding available to us for whatever purchases we might want to make, irrespective of our proximity to cash. They give us access to goods and services from a global market at any moment we wanna pick them up. It's more relevant to me right now. The last couple of days we were there, they were monkeying with our cell service. In fact, we really didn't have cell service but for a few minutes, and it would be intermittent, and we didn't know when they were gonna come on again. More than one person in our group said, "I'm going home and buy some paper maps". Because we were all dependent. "Where are you gonna be"? "Well, I'll text you, and I'll meet you there". Or, "How do I get there"? "Well, just Google it".
And they shut down our technology. We depend on those things. We are interdependent upon them. "But the Holy Spirit", no, I accepted the Lord, and he lives in me. And when my earth suit wears out, he's gonna help me make a transition. "But I mean, you don't want me to, like, listen to him every day. I mean, like, hear voices"? My spiritual formation began, I was born again and began to grow spiritually in spite of my involvement with traditional churches. Those things didn't take place in traditional churches. They took place in the Charismatic Renewal in the late '60s and the early '70s. I was a boy, but that was the group of people that I was initiated into the kingdom of God with, so I spent the first few decades of my spiritual journey pretty much in that end of the pool.
So I'm very much at home with the conversations around things like a spiritual life. I fully believe the Spirit of God resides within us at conversion. That he no longer dwells in temples built with human hands, but that you and I are the temple of the living God. "Therefore honor God with your body," the Bible says. People get heated up about something we should or shouldn't do at church. News bulletin: you take the Spirit of God with you. He didn't stay here in the building. So if you take him to see things that you don't think we should see here, what are you doing with the temple? I love you. But the Bible also talks about things like Spirit baptism, speaking in tongues, the gifts of the Spirit, the manifestations of the Spirit, healing, deliverance from unclean spirits.
You see, we have seminars and discussions and Bible studies and debates ad nauseam. I don't want to read a book about ice cream. I have a friend that went to ice cream school. I didn't. I went to the freezer with a spoon. Now, my friend can make some crazy ice cream, for which I'm grateful. I'm the beneficiary. They brought some to the office a few weeks ago. I was so happy. If you'll make ice cream and bring it to me, we can do a podcast. I'm kidding. There's more than enough of me. But we talk about these things and we debate whether they exist.
Folks, we have reached a point in time where if we don't have a meaningful spiritual life, we're not going to flourish. I doubt we survive. I believe that the blessing of God and the curse of disobedience are both equally real. I don't believe they're theoretical. And that if you've lived in disobedience or practiced disobedience, you better deal with the spiritual consequence. There's a weight on you. In general, the reality of the spiritual realm, both good and evil. I'm suggesting to you we need an interdependency with the Holy Spirit in order to flourish in a time when evil is more prevalent. I believe we're gonna have to develop a greater awareness and dependence upon the helper which the Father has provided.
Now, I'm not suggesting something new. I'm not suggesting something that is extra biblical. I am suggesting a different pattern for us, a different type of trust, a more personal awareness. I'm suggesting that the current season demands of us spiritual growth. By observation, it seems to me we don't care that much. That's why we'd rather focus on election. If we can just hold our noses and get to November, maybe it'll be better. November will only be better if we make spiritual changes now. The disciples had experience. They had learned to follow Jesus. But then he got to the point where he was leaving, and they were very, very unhappy. They were unhappy with him. They were confused, they were frustrated. They were at the end of their rope because Jesus was asking them to learn and to grow, and they didn't want to.
I believe Jesus is asking us to learn and to grow. And I think we have a similar resistance. We wanna say, "I'm born again". They could say, "Look, I walked on water with you. I was there at the Mount of Transfiguration. We fed a multitude. We left everything for you," they said. "We've left everything for you". And Jesus said, "You have, and there's a reward attached to that, but I need you to grow". I brought you some verses. I don't have time to unpack them in detail. We'll do it more. But in John 14, Jesus said, "I'll ask the Father, and He'll give you another Helper". The NIV translates that "Comforter," but I believe "Helper", either one is okay, but I believe "Helper" is closer to the meaning.
The Greek word is paraclete. But, "I'll give you another helper That, He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it doesn't see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you". Same chapter, verse 26, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things. He'll bring to your remembrance all that I said to you". He said, "There's much I need to say to you. There's more you need to know, but you can't bear it right now. You can't take any more right now". But he said, "When the Helper comes, he will teach you what you need to know".
Folks, we need help. People, I'm asked all the time on a daily basis. People say to me, "Who do you trust? Where do you go? What do you listen to? How do we know what to do? What information is correct? They're lying to us. We don't know. We don't", yes. We better know the Spirit of truth. "Well, pastor, now, in the tradition in which I grew up". I'm grateful you grew up in a Christian tradition. But you probably grew up, some of you grew up in a church with nothing but a hand fan. But I bet you've just got fancy air conditioning in your home. So if you can grow technologically, what if we grow spiritually?
What if we allow the Spirit of God to equip us for the beginning of the 21st century when there's a conflict raging in the earth unlike anything we've seen in decades? There are disruptions coming. The systems you've counted on to bring stability and clarity that you thought were trustworthy, they have been exposed. It's unsustainable. I'm not frightened any more than those kids I saw playing in the Jewish quarter last week. God will take us through. But we're gonna have to recognize his voice and be able to follow his direction and be willing to walk in obedience and truth and faithfulness. We've been coached to say, "I'm saved".
Good for you. I'm grateful for that. And if you're not, I'll help you with it after service. But we better grow beyond that. John 15, "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that's the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the...He will testify about Me". John 16, "I tell you the truth". You know now when Jesus says that, you're like, "Ah". That's like when you're on the plane and the pilot comes on, says, "You need to buckle your seatbelt. There's some turbulence". Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away". Do you think the disciples believed him? They've left everything to follow Jesus. Three years with Jesus, he says, "Look, I'm leaving you, but it's gonna be better". It's been years ago. We were taking a trip to Israel. And we got to New York, and they came to me and they said, "You can't go on the plane with these people".
Now, I've never gone to Israel when there wasn't some kind of turmoil, and there's always a little anxiety amongst the people that are going for the first time. So I got the group together, and I said, "I'm not getting on your plane. They're putting me on another plane". You know what everybody said? "We'd rather get on your plane". I said, "No, really. They think yours is pretty safe". Just because I could. Well, I have a little bit of that feeling when Jesus says, you know, "I'm going away, and where I go, you can't come. It's better for you if I go away". They're, "No, we're good with you. We didn't vote for better. We got together, we voted, we're with you. We're the J troop. We're just staying with you". "If I don't go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I'll send Him".
We haven't lived like we believe that. If I tell you Jesus is returning, applause breaks out. And that's a good thing. I don't disagree with that. But I believe we can develop an interdependence with the Holy Spirit that will bring a resilience to us that will enable us to overcome evil. It will drive out fear and anxiety and uncertainty. He'll tell us what we need to know in advance of when we need to know it. He'll give us the wisdom we need to respond to the challenges that are before us. And that is far better than being churched people or religious. We're gonna talk about it some more in the next session.
There's some amazing things happening in our nation and in our world. Don't get focused on the theater of the absurd. Celebrate the victories of the truth that are breaking into the light. But let's decide to give an invitation to the Holy Spirit. Stand with me. That's my prayer for us tonight. I didn't bring you a prayer. I wanted to pray for you, if you'll allow me. And the attitude I would encourage you to start to cultivate is one of intentionally, purposefully saying, "I wanna receive what God has for me".
That's how you received the new birth. You said, "I'm a sinner, and I need a savior. Jesus, be Lord of my life". And what I'm inviting you to is to begin to say, "Holy Spirit, you're welcome in my life. Anyway, I will pray for people. I'll use my voice. I'll find new boldness. I'll tell my God story. I'll read my Bible". We're gonna talk about some components, but it begins with this attitude, this expression that "You're welcome. I wanna receive. I wanna receive. I wanna receive".
Father, thank you for your Word, for your truth, for your power, for your presence. Lord, we recognize that you're moving in the earth in the most remarkable ways. Expressions of your great majesty and authority are visible all around us. We praise you for... we also see the expressions of darkness and evil and hatred, immorality, and brazen dishonesty. Lord, it's apparent wherever we look, but we know you are greater and that you have a plan and you've called us to this season. Holy Spirit, we need your help. And we rejoice tonight that you are our Helper. And we turn our hearts to you to say we wanna listen. We wanna cooperates. We're listening. We wanna yield to you because we've never yielded before. We wanna learn to depend upon you and trust you, to welcome you into our decisions and our plans and our purposes. We praise you for what you're doing and what you will do. In Jesus's name, amen.