Prophesying by Speaking forth God’s Word to Fulfill His Desire and Build up the Church

In Ezekiel 37 we see not only our condition when we’re fallen or backslidden (“dry bones”) but also God’s solution: prophesying, that is, the need to prophesy by speaking for the Lord so that the Spirit would come in and enliven us!

On the one hand, the many dry, disjointed, very dry, separated bones in the valley are the bones of God’s people; on the other, the Lord wants His prophets to prophesy over these bones, that is, to speak His word, so that His Spirit may come in.

God’s Spirit comes into us to enliven us so that we may become a corporate Body that is formed into an army, and also built up as God’s dwelling place.

In God’s eyes, the situation of His people is as if they are simply scattered, dry bones – they are not even merely corpses lying around, but they are dry bones; in the religious world of Christendom there’s death, and God’s people are scattered, dead, and dry.

Even in our case, there may be many things that are sinful, worldly, and religious, and these things are “graves” to us, holding us in death. The actual condition of a sinner is that he’s buried in a grave, dead and dry; many Christians also, unfortunately, are in a buried condition.

It is a blessing to see and realize that we are dead and dry, in great need of the Lord’s enlivening. To such ones the Lord comes as the Savior of the dead; He comes through His word and Spirit to cause dead persons become living.

We were dead in sins and offenses, and God came in Christ as the Spirit to enliven us, regenerate us, and renew us.

In our daily experience, whenever we don’t touch the Lord but spend time apart from Him, death creeps in, the grave opens its mouth, and many legitimate and good things such as studying, working, and taking care of our family can become a tomb that holds us in death.

We need the Lord’s word to come, and we need to be under the hearing of the faith; when God’s word is spoken through prophesying, that is, when a man on earth cooperates with the Lord to prophesy by speaking for God, the Spirit comes in, the breath of life enters into us, and we are enlivened and formed into God’s army to fight for His interest on earth.

Prophesying by Speaking forth God’s Word and Declaring His Intention to People

Many people have an incorrect and limited understanding of what it means to prophesy, thinking it refers only to predicting the future and foretelling events that will take place.

However, in Ezekiel 37 prophesying refers not to predicting but to speaking forth the word of God, declaring His intention, and speaking for the Lord.

As seen in Ezek. 37:4-5, Jehovah told Ezekiel to prophesy over the dry bones and say to them, Thus says the Lord Jehovah, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. The result of Ezekiel’s prophesying, as seen in v. 10, is that breath came into the dry bones, and they lived and stood up upon their feet – an exceedingly great army.

Ezekiel’s speaking for God and declaring God’s intention was his prophesying, and this brought in a conversion of the situation; Ezekiel’s prophesying allowed God to carry out His word. Prophesying is the key matter in Ezekiel 37 for the fulfillment of God’s intention, His will.

The result of prophesying is that the Spirit came in to enliven God’s people, to deliver them out of their graves, and to form them into a great army.

We need to learn to prophesy as Ezekiel did, not in the sense of predicting the future, but in the sense of having God’s speaking and then speaking forth, declaring something for the Lord.

We need a renewed appreciation of what prophecy is according to the word of God. God has a desire – He wants to carry something out, but He wouldn’t do it (and He even couldn’t do it) because He needs a man, a prophet, someone on earth who would recite, repeat, and speak forth what He has spoken.

Prophesying is not to generate something original, but to speak what is in God’s heart and mind. We are here to prophesy, to repeat and speak what God speaks to His people. This kind of prophesying is not just speaking but also praying; prophesying is speaking the word of God to man, and praying is speaking to God.

We have to prophesy to the people (represented by the dry bones) and we have to prophesy to the Spirit, that the Spirit may come into the dry bones and they may live; this is a prophecy-prayer, a speaking to man and to God.

We need to speak forth what we hear from the Lord; as the Lord speaks to us, we need to speak to others. We need to prophesy over the dead bones of God’s people so that the Spirit may come in, enliven them, and cause them to live.

We need to speak what God has spoken, what He has willed, what He has covenanted, and what He has determined. We need to speak by faith what God is speaking right now; when we speak, that is, when we prophesy, God will bring things into being, and the Spirit will operate!

In Ezek. 37:10, 14 we see that, when Ezekiel spoke forth for God, that is, when he prophesied, God gave people the Spirit. God didn’t give the Spirit right away; He gave the Spirit when Ezekiel spoke. It is not a small things for us as God-men to speak for God, for when we speak for God things will happen as God intended!

Lord Jesus, grant us a renewed appreciation of what prophesying is. Speak to us, Lord, and reveal to us Your heart’s desire, Your intention, so that we may speak Your word to Your people. Make us Your mouthpiece, those who are not afraid nor ashamed to speak forth the word of God as God has spoken to us. Save us from trying to generate something original; grant us an ear to hear, eyes to see the vision, and a mouth to speak what You are speaking, communicating Your desire and intention to man! Amen, Lord, may Your Spirit follow up Your word and enliven many to produce and form a great army for Your interest!

Being the Men of God with the Breath of God who Prophesy to Build up the Church

The main meaning of prophesying in the Bible is not to predict but to speak forth the Lord, to minister the Lord to people.

Paul says in 1 Cor. 14:4 that he who prophesies builds up the church, and later in v. 31 he says that we all can prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged.

How can we build up the church? It is by prophesying. How can we be encouraged and have God’s speaking among us and through us? It is by prophesying.

When we exercise our spirit to prophesy by speaking God’s word to His people, we speak forth God with God as the content, and thus we minister God to the hearers, and we bring them to God. This should be the content of the church meetings: much prophesying, much speaking of God’s word to transmit God to people that they may be infused with God.

We also can see this in 2 Tim. 3:14-17 where Paul speaks of “the man of God” and “the breath of God”. God’s word is His breathing out, His breath; God’s speaking in His word is His breathing, and His word is spirit (John 6:63), pneuma, or breath.

Whatever God speaks, that is Spirit, and the Spirit is embodied in the word. The substance and essence of the Scriptures is the Spirit, which is the breath of God.

Christ is the living word of God (Rev. 19:13) and the Scripture is God’s written word (Matt. 4:4); we as men of God need to be fully equipped with God’s word, that is, we need to be men of God with the breath of God.

We need to pray-read the word of God, striking the Spirit in the word with our spirit just as the match strikes the matchbox, and we will get the divine fire; then, we can speak to others from what the Lord has spoken to us, His living word.

We need to proclaim the word, and be ready in season and out of season; we need to daily breathe in the breathed out word of God, and we will be full of the Spirit to prophesy, speak forth, declare God’s word to others.

In caring for the saints in the local churches, especially in the time of the church’s decline, the preaching of the word is vital.

How should we preach the word, and what should we speak to the saints? We shouldn’t merely convey teachings and doctrines, but we should be men of God with the breath of God, men who are breathing in the exhaled word of God in a fresh way to be filled with the Spirit and prophesy for the building up of the church.

We need to breathe in, inhale, what God has breathed out – His word; when we mix the Word with our prayer and the exercise of our spirit, we inhale God’s word and are equipped with His word to speak it in season and out of season.

We need to be not only today’s Ezekiel’s but also the Timothy’s of today, those who are filled with a rich deposit of the truth and commit this truth to faithful ones, making them competent men of God with the breath of God who speak the truth anytime and anywhere.

This is our heavenly breathing: daily inhaling God’s breath and exhaling it by speaking, by prophesying.

Lord Jesus, we want to be the men of God with the breath of God who prophesy for the building up of the church. Amen, Lord, we breathe in the breathed out word of God, and we speak forth what You have spoken to us in Your word. Save us from merely coming to Your word to get knowledge or teaching; may we exercise our spirit to pray over the word of God so that we may breathe in the words in the Bible and be filled with the Spirit! Amen, Lord, keep us breathing You in and speaking Your word to others to have a proper spiritual breathing!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1984, vol. 1, “Teachers’ Training,” ch. 2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Ezekiel (2), msg. 1 (week 13 in the HWMR), The Dry Bones being Enlivened to Become an Exceedingly Great Army and the Two Pieces of Wood Being Joined Together for the Building of the House of God.
• Hymns on this topic:
  #All Scripture is the very breath of God, / And by His Spirit into words was breathed… / It is the breath of God for us to breathe, / That as our portion God we may enjoy; / Receiving it by spirits exercised, / Our need is met, His wealth we may employ. (Hymns #799)
  # Now the church life is so precious with all the saints so dear. / Enjoying all Your riches, our vision is so clear, / That all would prophesy of Christ from what they’ve seen, / According to Your scripture in First Corinthians fourteen. (Song on, God’s economy)
  # We must ever preach the gospel, / Learning how to prophesy / For the building of the Body, / Thus the Lord to glorify. (Song on speaking God’s word)