This two-minute section shows the sermon's central exegetical move. Ezekiel’s dry bones are briefly identified as the people of God in exile, but then immediately universalised into a picture of the world and personalised into the hearer’s sense of despair.
When Easter Preaching Stops Short: Ezekiel 37, Misused Scripture, and the Loss of the New Birth
This Easter sermon, preached by Rev John Huynh at St Stephen’s Presbyterian church, is not weak because the preacher chose poor texts. On the contrary, he chose magnificent Easter texts. He took the congregation to Ezekiel 37, John 11, and Revelation 21. These are passages full of covenant judgment, resurrection power, divine speech, Spirit-wrought life, Christ’s mediatorial glory, and the final dwelling of God with his redeemed people.
The tragedy is that the sermon repeatedly stands at the threshold of rich biblical theology but does not enter. It invokes Ezekiel’s dry bones, Lazarus’ tomb, Christ’s cross, the empty grave, and Revelation’s new creation, yet each text is pressed chiefly into the service of hope over death. The result is a sermon filled with biblical material but lacking biblical depth and concern.
The preacher’s stated structure is clear. Easter, he says, was not a random event but part of “God’s grand plan” to show that one day all that is wrong with the world will be undone. He proposes to show “the bigger picture of God’s plan,” “how Easter fits in,” and “how we fit into that story,” under the headings promise, person, and power. The promise is Ezekiel 37, the person is Jesus Christ, and the power is displayed on Easter Sunday.
That is a promising structure. Yet the sermon’s central theological failure is that it misuses Ezekiel 37 by removing its covenantal specificity. The valley of dry bones is treated chiefly as a general image of human despair, social brokenness, grief, and fear of death, rather than as a prophetic vision concerning the whole house of Israel under the death-like judgment of exile. Once Ezekiel is flattened in this way, the rest of the sermon is bent in a therapeutic and man-centred direction. Sin is named but not fully diagnosed. Christ is presented as overcoming death, but not as overcoming sin, the cause of death. The necessity and urgency of the new birth are consequently blunted.
Such sermons may suggest a profound spiritual crisis within the Presbyterian Church of Victoria: Scripture is publicly read but not faithfully expounded; Christ is named but not fully proclaimed; sin is mentioned but not exposed in its full biblical gravity; and congregations are comforted without being pressed with the necessity of the new birth.
This critique does not presume to judge the hidden state of any minister’s soul. But it does insist that sermons reveal theology, and theology reveals the condition of a church’s pulpit. The Lord Jesus warned that men may prophesy in his name and yet be unknown to him (Matt. 7:21–23). Paul charged Timothy to watch both his life and his doctrine (1 Tim. 4:16). James warns that teachers will be judged with greater strictness (Jas. 3:1). Therefore, an Easter sermon that handles Ezekiel’s dry bones, Lazarus’ tomb, the cross, and the resurrection without pressing the necessity of being made alive by the Spirit is not a small matter. It is pastorally irresponsible: it offers Easter consolation without the searching summons of the new birth.
This review will therefore proceed differently from other articles in The New Birth in Exile series. Its concern is not merely whether the sermon contained true statements, nor whether it made some legitimate pastoral applications. The central question is how Scripture can be misused when the context of a passage is ignored. Ezekiel 37 was read, but its covenantal, exilic, and redemptive context was not allowed to govern the sermon. Once that context was removed, the valley of dry bones became a general metaphor for human despair, and Easter became chiefly a message of reassurance in the face of death. This is how a sermon may sound biblical while failing to be governed by Scripture.
And so to begin, we ask “What is Ezekiel 37 actually about?” What happens when its covenantal-exilic context is removed? What doctrine of sin is lost when exile becomes merely despair? What doctrine of Christ is weakened when death is separated from sin? What urgency remains for the new birth when dry bones become a metaphor for discouragement rather than spiritual death under judgment? These questions expose the sermon’s central failure: Scripture was present, but it was hollowed out.
The sermon begins with a question of relevance. What does Easter have to do with “you and me”? How is a story from two thousand years ago relevant today? The preacher then frames the world in terms of war, missiles, drones, petrol prices, inflation, Easter eggs, and the anxieties of contemporary life.
Those are not illegitimate pastoral concerns. Easter does speak to death, suffering, fear, grief, and the groaning of creation. Scripture itself teaches that death is an enemy (1 Cor. 15:26), that creation groans under bondage to corruption (Rom. 8:20–23), and that believers grieve, though not as those without hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Reformed experiential preaching must never be emotionally detached.
But what happens when such questions become the controlling questions? What happens when the sermon’s governing burden becomes, “What hope does Easter offer to people living in a broken world under the shadow of death?” That is a biblical question, but it is not the deepest question raised by Ezekiel 37.
Ezekiel’s vision first asks something more searching: What will the Lord do with his covenant people who are dead under judgment because of their unfaithfulness? Can those who have come under covenant curse live again? Can God raise his people by his Word and Spirit?
This is the first warning sign. The existential questions become architectonic. They do not merely apply the gospel; they organise it. They determine the problem to be solved, the way Ezekiel 37 is read, the way John 11 is heard, the significance of Easter, and the nature of the final appeal.
The sermon’s therapeutic direction is evident when the preacher turns from Ezekiel’s vision to contemporary experience. He says the world sometimes feels like “a valley of dry bones,” because “the grave wins every day,” and then turns the imagery toward the individual hearer: “What is life all for? I live, I try to achieve, and then we die.”
But is Ezekiel’s valley first a mirror of modern anxiety? Is it first a picture of human beings wondering whether life has meaning before they die? Or is it first a revelation of God’s covenant people dead under judgment, helpless unless the Lord himself speaks and breathes life into them?
The sermon chooses the former direction. That choice controls everything that follows.
The preacher does recognise that Ezekiel 37 historically concerned the people of God. He says the valley was “a picture of what the people of God were like”: they were far from God, exiled from their land, homeless, in Babylon, and had lost identity, meaning, and hope.
But does the sermon let that covenantal setting govern the exposition? No. The acknowledgement is quickly absorbed into a broader emotional reading. The bones become a picture of lost identity, lost meaning, lost hope, despair, desperation, desolation, and death as an “insatiable beast” that keeps swallowing the living.
Yet Ezekiel 37 is not first a universal symbol of existential exhaustion. It is a prophetic vision concerning God’s covenant people in exile. The bones are “the whole house of Israel” (Ezek. 37:11). Their cry is, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.” The Lord’s answer is not a generic promise of emotional consolation, but covenant restoration: he will open their graves, bring them into the land of Israel, put his Spirit within them, and they shall live (Ezek. 37:12–14).
Why were these bones in exile? Why were they cut off? Why was Israel under this death-like judgment? Not because life was painful in a generic sense, but because the covenant people had been covenantally unfaithful to the Lord. Ezekiel has already exposed the abominations of the house of Israel, showing why the Lord would go far from his sanctuary (Ezek. 8:6, 13, 15). The Westminster Shorter Catechism’s proof texts themselves connect Israel’s abominations, the guilt of those who refuse repentance, and the curse upon all who fail to continue in God’s law.
Therefore, what should Ezekiel 37 have done in this sermon? It should have sharpened the proclamation. It should have exposed the possible covenant unfaithfulness, judgment, helplessness of God’s people today, and the need for divine resurrection. The valley of dry bones reveals the covenant people under judgment. It is not merely a picture of sadness. It is a vision of death under the curse.
The Lord’s promise is not merely, “I will give hope to the hurting,” but, “I will raise my judged and ruined people by my own Word and Spirit.” I will remind my reader here that church buildings across Australia are being sold off every week. Most Presbyterian churches in Victoria have dwindling congregations and are on the brink of closure.
By detaching Ezekiel from covenant unfaithfulness, the sermon strips the passage of the very categories that give it force: sin, judgment, curse, exile, divine speech, Spirit-wrought resurrection, restoration, and covenant renewal. The very message God’s people need to hear today.
When Ezekiel’s covenantal context is removed, the sermon becomes man-centred. Not because it never mentions God, Christ, sin, or resurrection. It mentions all of them. It becomes man-centred because the function of the text is redirected toward human emotional need.
This is visible in the preacher’s paraphrase of God’s question, “Can these bones live?” He turns it into the question whether there may be “hope to the despairing,” “joy to the sad,” “healing to the hurting,” or “life to the dead.”
But is that what God’s question first means? Is the Lord asking whether discouraged people can feel hopeful again? Or is he revealing the impossibility of self-resurrection and the sovereign power of his Word and Spirit?
The bones cannot live unless God speaks and God breathes. The question is not merely whether the sad may find joy; it is whether the dead can be raised by the Word and Spirit of the Lord.
Here this sermon stops short precisely where it should have pressed deepest. The preacher says, rightly, that when God’s Word is spoken, “something is expected to happen,” and he quotes the promise, “I’ll make breath enter you and you will come to life.” He later says, “When the dead hear the voice of God, and when they receive the Spirit of God, they come back to life.”
What do dry bones need? Not encouragement. Not reassurance. Not a new perspective. They need resurrection by the Word and Spirit of God.
That statement should have become the doctrinal heart of the sermon. It should have opened the necessity of regeneration. Sinners dead in trespasses and sins do not need merely to feel hopeful about the future. They need to be made alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:1–5). They must be born again (John 3:3–8). They must hear the voice of the Son of God and live (John 5:25). If churches are dwindling it is a judgment from God and the Spirit must revive us with his breath.
The Westminster Standards provide exactly this grammar. Scripture must be handled as the rule of faith and life. Sin and misery must be clearly exposed. Christ must be preached as Redeemer. Salvation must be explained through effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. The hearer must be called to faith and repentance, not merely comforted with therapeutic or motivational application. On that test, the sermon fails at the level of controlling logic. It has biblical words but therapeutic architecture.
The preacher does eventually say something important: “the real problem isn’t just death.” He says there is “a problem behind death,” which the Bible calls sin. He defines sin as rejecting God, wanting to live without him, breaking relationship with him, taking God’s gifts while rejecting the giver, and concludes that “death is the result, but sin is the cause.”
Those statements are true. The sermon does not entirely omit sin.
But can Easter be preached faithfully if sin is named but not exposed in its full biblical gravity? Can death be understood if sin is reduced mainly to relational rejection? Can Christ’s resurrection be rightly proclaimed if the congregation is not brought under the full verdict of God’s law?
Sin is not merely relational rejection. It is want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God (WSC 14). It is guilt in Adam, corruption of nature, actual transgression, loss of communion with God, liability to wrath and curse, death itself, and the pains of hell forever (WSC 16–19). The Westminster Shorter Catechism identifies “sin and misery,” “Christ the Redeemer,” “effectual calling,” “justification,” “adoption,” “sanctification,” “faith in Jesus Christ,” and “repentance unto life” as basic doctrinal categories for Presbyterian catechesis and sermon analysis.
The sermon fails to press this full diagnosis. It does not bring the congregation under this Scriptural verdict: guilty in Adam, corrupt in nature, transgressors of God’s law, under wrath, unable to save themselves, and dead apart from sovereign grace. It says sin causes death, but it does not sufficiently unfold sin as lawlessness, guilt, corruption, covenant-breaking, divine curse, and spiritual death.
That failure matters because Easter cannot be rightly preached unless sin is rightly diagnosed. “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15:56). Death is not an independent enemy floating above the human condition. Death reigns because sin entered the world through Adam (Rom. 5:12–21). The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).
So, what is lost when sin is underdeveloped? The cross is underdeveloped. The resurrection is underdeveloped. The new birth is underdeveloped. The hearer’s peril is underdeveloped. The urgency of repentance disappears.
The preacher’s strongest Christological move comes when he connects John 11 to Ezekiel 37. Martha remembers the promise of God, and Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” The preacher says Jesus is claiming to be the person who fulfils the promise of the valley of dry bones.
That is a real strength. The sermon is not Christless. It does not leave Ezekiel in the Old Testament. It brings the promise to Jesus and rightly sees that Lazarus’ raising displays Christ’s life-giving power.
But what kind of life-giving power does John 11 reveal? Does Jesus merely reverse death? Does he simply show that grief will not have the final word? Or does John 11 reveal the incarnate Son whose voice raises the dead and whose own substitutionary death will secure life for his people?
The sermon stops short. Lazarus becomes proof that Jesus has power over death. The preacher says Jesus’ words pierced the grave, Lazarus came out, and “a crack in the world” appeared as light began to break in. He then asks whether this is the beginning of a new world order where the grave will no longer swallow up the dead.
This is true, but so incomplete. John 11 does not merely reveal Jesus as one who can reverse death. It reveals the incarnate Son as the resurrection and the life, whose own death is now drawing near. Lazarus’ resurrection helps precipitate the plot to kill Jesus (John 11:45–53). In other words, Jesus does not defeat death by raw miracle-power alone. He defeats death by going under sin’s curse as the Mediator of his people.
The preacher does say that Jesus gave his life, dealt with sins once for all, and had guilt, shame, and curse poured upon him. Yet even there, the final emphasis falls on the display of power over death and the declaration, “He defeated death.” The atoning, judicial, covenantal, propitiatory meaning of the cross is too compressed to govern the sermon.
Who is the Christ in Reformed theology? He is not merely the conqueror of mortality. He is the Mediator who obeys, suffers, satisfies divine justice, bears wrath, removes guilt, and secures redemption. The Westminster Confession places Christ’s mediatorial work in the doctrinal structure that includes the fall, sin, covenant, free will, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, and resurrection.
The sermon does not deny this structure, but it does not preach with its force. The result is a sermon about Christ overcoming death, but not about Christ overcoming sin, the cause of death, through his propitiatory sacrifice. That is not a small omission. If sin is the sting of death, then death cannot be preached rightly unless sin is exposed and Christ’s sin-bearing work is central.
This is the most serious effect of the sermon’s handling of Ezekiel 37.
If the bones represent despairing people, what must the sermon offer? Comfort. If the bones represent discouraged people, what must the sermon offer? Hope. If the bones represent people anxious about mortality, what must the sermon offer? Reassurance.
But if the bones represent God’s covenant people dead under judgment, what must the sermon preach? Regeneration.
This is where the sermon’s therapeutic handling of suffering becomes especially damaging. The preacher names many temporal hardships: war, economic pressure, grief, death, uncertainty, and the felt futility of life. Yet these hardships are treated chiefly as evidence that life is hard and that people need Easter hope. That is true, but it is not enough.
Scripture does not allow suffering to be interpreted merely therapeutically. In Ezekiel’s day, exile was not random hardship. It was the providential judgment of God upon covenant unfaithfulness. It was also severe mercy: the Lord exposing the death-state of his people, stripping away false confidence, and showing them that life away from him is death.
Therefore, when a sermon moves from Ezekiel’s exile to modern hardship, it must not merely ask, “How can Easter comfort us?” It must also ask, “How is God using these afflictions to summon us back to himself?”
Temporal afflictions are not outside the hand of God. They are divine goads. The Lord uses them to expose human frailty, unsettle false securities, humble proud sinners, and call covenant hearers to dependence, repentance, and renewed seeking of Him. A Reformed doctrine of providence will not permit suffering to be treated merely as an emotional problem needing reassurance. It must also be interpreted under the wise, holy, and sovereign government of God.
This matters for the new birth. If suffering is treated chiefly as pain needing comfort, then the sermon need only console. But if suffering exposes man’s death-state before God, then the sermon must do more. It must declare that sinners do not need mere reassurance; they need resurrection.
Ezekiel 37 itself demands this. The bones live only when the prophetic Word is spoken and the breath of God enters them. The Lord himself interprets the vision: “I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live” (Ezek. 37:14). This is not mere encouragement in exile. It is divine resurrection.
The preacher came close to this when he said that the dead hear the voice of God, receive the Spirit of God, and come back to life. But why was this not pressed into the congregation? Why were the hearers not asked: Have you been made alive? Are you still dry bones? Has the Spirit raised you? Have you passed from death to life? Have you been born again?
Instead, the appeal is framed mainly as trusting Jesus for life and future hope: “Do I trust in Jesus or do I not? Do I stake my life on him or do I not?” That is not wrong. Faith in Christ is necessary. But Easter faith is not mere optimism that Jesus has proven his power over death. It is personal reliance upon the crucified and risen Mediator: that he bore my guilt, satisfied divine justice on my behalf, and was raised because the Father accepted his finished work. But the sermon does not give faith this Reformed setting: effectual calling, regeneration, repentance unto life, union with Christ, justification, adoption, sanctification, and perseverance.
Again, the Westminster Standards provide the needed grammar. Scripture must be handled as the rule of faith and life. Sin and misery must be clearly exposed. Christ must be preached as Redeemer. Salvation must be explained through effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. The hearer must be called to faith and repentance, not merely comforted with therapeutic or motivational application.
The Three Forms of Unity also identify the Canons of Dort as a principal Reformed confession of total depravity, irresistible grace, regeneration, conversion, perseverance, and sovereign mercy. That is precisely what Ezekiel 37 should have allowed this sermon to preach. The dead must be raised by Word and Spirit.
A flattened Ezekiel produces a flattened appeal. The congregation is invited to take comfort in resurrection hope, but it is not sufficiently summoned to seek the Lord as those who must be made alive. The urgency of the new birth is displaced by the offer of Easter reassurance.
Had Ezekiel 37 been preached faithfully, it could have directly challenged the congregation to covenant faithfulness. That call would not be moralistic. It would be evangelical.
Israel was in exile for unfaithfulness. The dry bones were not merely weary sufferers but the covenant people under judgment. Therefore, an Easter sermon from Ezekiel 37 should ask: Are you standing far off from God? Are you still in exile? Are you content with religious words while remaining dry bones? Have you sought the Lord through the crucified and risen Christ?
The summons should have been: Do not remain in exile. Do not remain among the dry bones. Do not stand far off from God. Christ has borne the curse, conquered sin and death, and opened the way into the Father’s presence. Therefore, seek the Lord. Come near through the risen Mediator. Cease complaining about life’s hardships and live as the grateful and restored covenant people of God.
This would connect Ezekiel, Good Friday, and Easter far more richly. The torn curtain declares that access to the Father is now open through the crucified Mediator (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 10:19–22). The empty tomb declares that the life of the age to come has begun in the risen Son (Rom. 6:9–11; 1 Cor. 15:20–23). The Spirit gives life to the dead and forms the restored people of God (Ezek. 37:14; Rom. 8:11).
The sermon does not attempt to make these moves. Its conclusion asks the hearer about the “final painting,” the picture of life and future, and says that the world where the grave is no more can be theirs by faith. That is not false. But it is still too thin. The summons should not merely be, “This future can be yours.” It should be, “Seek the Lord while he may be found. Repent and believe the gospel. Come near through the torn curtain. Be reconciled to God. Receive life by the Spirit. Walk as God’s restored covenant people.” The resurrection of Christ proclaims today is the day of salvation.
The sermon ends with Revelation’s picture of no more tears, no more death, no more cemeteries, no more funerals, no more mourning, crying, or pain. The preacher says this is where Easter is heading and that the final headline will be “God wins and there is peace with God.”
Again, what a wonderful text. Again, the sermon stops short.
What is the centre of Revelation 21? Is it merely the removal of pain? Or is it the consummation of covenant communion: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man” (Rev. 21:3)?
No more death and no more tears are fruits of that communion. They are not the centre. The sermon rightly celebrates the removal of pain, but it does not sufficiently make the presence of God the centre.
This is another instance of the reoccurring pattern of Scripture usage in this sermon. The biblical text is chosen well, but developed only partially. Its human comfort is extracted, while its God-centred covenantal glory is muted.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins where the sermon should have ended: man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The Westminster Shorter Catechism is part of the Westminster catechetical tradition and gives a concise doctrinal summary of the same system of doctrine confessed in the Westminster Confession. The PCV Code identifies the PCV as Westminster-confessional and states that it subscribes to the general principles of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. To preach Revelation 21 chiefly as the end of pain is to stop short of its glory. Easter morning should have declared the Father’s vindication of the crucified Christ, the inauguration of new creation in his risen body, and the future consummation of resurrection life for all who are united to him.
What happens to a church when its ministers can read resurrection texts without preaching regeneration? What does it suggest when Easter sermons comfort the anxious but do not awaken the dead? What should be concluded when Scripture is read, quoted, and connected to Christ, yet not allowed to govern the sermon’s theological movement?
The seriousness of this sermon lies not in a single awkward phrase or one missed doctrinal point. Its seriousness lies in its pattern.
Ezekiel 37 is read, but its covenantal-exilic specificity is flattened. John 11 is read, but its movement toward Christ’s death is underdeveloped. Good Friday is named, but the conquest of sin, guilt, curse, wrath, and condemnation is compressed. Easter Sunday is celebrated, but the resurrection is framed chiefly as hope over death rather than the Father’s vindication of the sin-bearing Mediator between us and God. Revelation 21 is quoted, but the covenant dwelling of God with his people is overshadowed by the removal of pain.
The sermon repeatedly touches the truth but does not drive it home. It repeatedly chooses magnificent passages but stops short of developing them Scripturally.
This is why the problem is not merely homiletical. It is theological and spiritual. Scripture is not being allowed to rule the sermon. The text is being made to serve a therapeutic burden. The congregation is given hope, but not adequately brought beneath judgment. They are told death will not win, but not sufficiently shown why death reigns. They are invited to trust Jesus, but not pressed with the necessity of being born again.
Such preaching may soothe the anxious. It may move the grieving. It may sound orthodox enough to pass without alarm. But it does not raise the dead.
And if sermons of this kind are representative, they may suggest not merely a homiletical weakness but a profound spiritual crisis within the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. A church may retain Reformed vocabulary, institutional respectability, and orthodox forms, while its preaching loses the power to wound, awaken, convict, and summon sinners to seek the Lord through Christ.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism warns against precisely this drift by providing sermon diagnostic categories: Does the sermon promote God’s glory? Does it handle Scripture as the rule of faith and life? Does it present sin and misery clearly? Does it present Christ as Redeemer? Does it explain salvation in terms of effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification? Does it call for faith and repentance? Does it avoid therapeutic or merely motivational application?
On those criteria, this sermon is gravely deficient.
It should have proclaimed that Israel’s exile reveals the seriousness of covenant unfaithfulness. The dry bones reveal the death-state of God’s judged people. Sin is the cause of death. Exile is the outward sign of alienation from God. Dry bones cannot revive themselves. Only the Word and Spirit of God can raise the dead.
The need to be born again, born of the spirit, concern should have governed the sermon. The church does not need Easter preaching that merely reassures the weary that life will one day improve. It needs preaching that warns covenant hearers not to presume upon outward belonging, religious familiarity, or Easter sentiment, but to examine whether they have been made alive by the Spirit of Christ. In exile, God’s people do not need mere encouragement; they need resurrection. They do not need therapeutic reassurance; they need to be made alive by the Spirit of Christ.
The central failure is this: Ezekiel’s dry bones were made to signify despair more than judgment, restoration more than regeneration, consolation more than conversion. As a result, Easter was preached as the proof that death will not have the last word, but not with sufficient force as the announcement that Christ has conquered sin, the cause of death, and now raises his people by the Spirit.
That is why this sermon belongs within the concerns of the New Birth in Exile series. It shows how Scripture can be used and yet blunted; how exile can be mentioned and yet stripped of covenant judgment; how resurrection can be celebrated and yet detached from regeneration; how Christ can be named and yet not preached with the full force of his sin-bearing, Spirit-giving work of the new birth.
A full copy of the sermon is available at The Reformed Pastor's YouTube channel
More articles in this series are at "The New Birth in Exile"
