Two more years passed by, and at last the statue was finished. On January 25, 1504, some of the first artists of the day assembled to see what Michael Angelo had made of the despised and rejected block. They were a famous company. There were the architect Monciatto, the great master Cosimo Roselli, the renowned artist Botticelli, San Gallo, the famous architect and engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, the first painter then in Italy, Filippino Lippi, and Pietro Perugino, the teacher of Raphael. The marvelous work was unveiled, and it stood for the first time challenging the admiration of one of the most famous gatherings of artists and architects that the world has ever seen. They all united in praise, and their judgment was unanimous. It was a master piece. And as a masterpiece it deserved no common place; it must not be hidden. It must stand in the public square. It must be a tribute to the glory and fame of their renowned city. So it was decided. As the statue weighed 18,000 lbs., great care and skill were required to remove it. The workmen slowly swung it in ropes suspended from fourteen oiled beams, and drawn by pulleys worked by forty men. It was brought through the door in the wall which had been broken to allow its exit from the workshop of the great artist. For three days and three nights it was watched by chosen guards as if it were a holy thing. On May 18th at dawn it arrived in the great square of the city of Florence. There it has stood for centuries; now it is placed with in walls. Today it is in the Academy of Fine Arts in the city. It is the world-famous “ David” of Michael Angelo. It represents the Shepherd King, the sweet psalmist of Israel, in the strength of his youth. The eyes are full of sweet perceptiveness, the right arm poised so as to hold the sling, the body agile and strong; it is a sculptured poem of strength and is a masterpiece of art. But it is more than that. It is a lesson of the power of God. God can make of Simon, the swearing backslider, a Peter, the Apostle of Pentecost. He can make of cowardly Mark the standby of Paul. Yes, and He can make of a valley of dry bones, a mighty host of the Lord in a resurrected people of Israel. The prophecy treats, in the fourth place, of The United and Converted Nation, 15-23 “ The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, And thou, son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: and join them for thee one to another into one stick, that they may become one in thy hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what thou meanest by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them with it, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thy hand before their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, whither they are gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all; neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their trans-
prophet is charged to prophesy to the four winds of heaven, that they may breathe upon the slain in order that they may live. When the man of God obeyed im plicitly, the bones immediately stood upon their feet as an unusually great army. What a splendid symbol of the Spirit of God is the wind! See Ezekiel 36:26, 27 and John 3:8. And what a transformation from the picture in verses 1 and 2 to that in verse 10. The power of the Word of God is beyond human calculation. In the third place, the passage presents The Meaning of the Vision, 11-14 “ Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off. Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, 0 my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, 0 my people. And I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I will place you in your own land: and ye shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord.” We are furnished with the key to the vision and the entire chapter in verse 11. There is no mistaking the subject of the prophecy and the abject despair indicated by their estimate o f themselves. Now, the figurative merges into the literal reality and that which is sym bolized by the transactions already set forth. The Lord Himself at the beginning of the millennial age, will cause Israel to be released from their graves, that is, the nations of the earth where they are now scattered. Then they will be returned and restored, not in num bers dictated by man’s quotas or wishes, but with that fullness which the Lord employs in executing His eter nal purpose for His chosen people. Israel is twice re ferred to (verses 12 and 13) as “ my people,” God’s people. Moreover, the place of their restoration is designated as “ the land of Israel” and “ your own land.” The ultimate divine objective is not left in doubt: the conversion of the ancient nation. Restoration to the homeland is valueless without the power of God in con version. Israel will be brought back to the Lord, as well as to the land of their fathers. How this vision throughout underscores the mighty power o f the living God! It is related that many centuries ago a number of workmen might have been seen dragging a great marble block into the city of Florence in Italy. It had come from the famous marble quarries of Carrara, and was intended to be made into a statue of a great prophet. But it contained some flaws, and when Donatello, the noted Italian sculptor, saw it, he refused to accept it. So there it lay in the cathedral yard, a useless block. One day the great artist, Michael Angelo, caught sight of the block. There rose up before his mind a thing of beauty, and he made a great resolution; he would make a great statue of it. It was a noble resolve and worthy of him. So he began the work. On the eleventh day o f September, 1500, early in the morning, Michael Angelo began his work. There, day after day, week after week, he chiseled patiently away. He allowed no other hand to touch it. Months passed and still the work was un finished. It was not that he was idle, for he worked so hard at times that he slept with his working clothes on. One day he said to a friend, who thought that he was only spending days and weeks of his time on what seemed to him trifles, “ It is these trifles that make perfection.”
AUGUST, 1964
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