Preach to them
Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 37:1-10
Paul called it “the foolishness of preaching.” He said that is God’s chosen means of converting men and women to Christ. He wasn’t exclusively referring to the Sunday morning sermon from the pulpit, although that would certainly be included in what he had in mind. I appreciate and agree with Paul’s honest appraisal of the act of preaching. When you consider what one of the primary objectives of preaching is – the conversion of souls – how could you not call it “foolishness.”
Now, if your view of conversion is merely the changing of someone’s opinion about some religious matter, if it is simply a way of winning a debate, even a lopsided one at that; then preaching doesn’t seem to be a fool’ errand at all. If preaching is like good salesmanship, except you are selling belief or commitment to a certain set of beliefs, then it’s a reasonable act.
On the other hand, if you understand conversion to Christ to be akin to what Ezekiel describes in the 37th chapter of his book, you realize it is foolish. If men and women without Christ are dead (and they are), and if they can be compared to dry bones scattered about in a valley, how can preaching to them help? They are deaf, blind, unfeeling, and don’t even care that you are standing before them. They are, in a word, dead. Your preaching isn’t going to change that.
Or is it?
I can’t think of an act more silly than to preach to a valley of dry bones. Yet this is what God told Ezekiel to do. God even gave Ezekiel the gist of the sermon with an introduction. The main point was God was going to work so that they would know that He is the LORD. The points were something like, a breath shall enter you, you shall live, your joints will be reattached, and you will have flesh on your bones. All so that you would know the LORD.
Every preacher who stands up to preach and looks out across his gathered people, feels the weight of that question, “Can these bones live.”
And every preacher that is worth his salt, says with faith, “O Lord God, you know.”
And they preach to win souls, not by the cleverness of their arguments, the winsomeness of their personality, the wisdom of their speech, or their mastery of oratorical skills. They preach to win souls by the power of God because only God can cause the dead to come to life.
And for God’s own reasons, He has chosen to create life out of death through the proclamation of the gospel in the Word of God.
Pray for your pastor today. He will look out and see a valley of dry bones. Pray he would have faith that God will use the foolishness of preaching to make those bones live.
