In Ezekiel chapter 36, there's
a wonderful revelation of how God saves sinners as it applies
to bringing God's people, God's elect to faith in Christ. the new birth, regeneration. And if you'll just look across
the page there, verse 26, it said, well, verse 25 of Ezekiel
36, he talks about how he will, well, let's go back to verse
24. He said, I'll take you from among the heathen, gather you
out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
Now, anytime you see these passages like this, in the old covenant. You see, Israel at this time,
or Judah rather, the southern king, they were in captivity
in Babylon at this time. Ezekiel is a prophet who prophesied
to the people while they were in captivity. And so when you
look at this, a lot of people, they relegate this to only the
physical nation of Israel coming out of captivity and going back
to the promised land. And there is a limited application
to the people of Israel. But the scripture, one old preacher
told me one time, it's bifocal. It looks close and it looks far
away. And the ultimate application
of this is to spiritual Israel under the headship of Christ.
Because there are a lot of things that are said here that cannot
be said of the physical nation Israel. Now God did take them
out of all countries, bring them back to the promised land, but
that's the way he does his chosen people in Christ. They're all
over the world. They're in Malawi, Africa. They're
in Albany, Georgia. They're in Louisiana, rest of
Louisiana and Jacksonville, North Carolina. God's gonna gather
his people out from among the heathen and bring them under
the headship of Christ. And so he says in verse 25, this
is Ezekiel 36. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you and you shall be clean. That's the blood of Christ cleansing
us from all sin. from all your filthiness and
from all your idols. Now that didn't happen to the
physical nation Israel. They, for the most part, stayed
in idolatry, even when God brought them out and put them in the
land. There may have been a brief time of national obedience, but
it didn't last long. And he says, I'll cleanse you
from the filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse
you? And look at verse 26, he says, a new heart also will I
give you. That's the new birth. That's
regeneration and conversion. The heart is the mind, the affections
and the will. A new spirit will I put within
you. And notice the language here. It's the language of God's
covenant. Covenant of grace. It's not I
will if you will. Because if that was the language,
we'd all be doomed. It's the language of I will and
you shall. Sovereignty. Sovereign grace. And he said, I'll put my spirit
within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.
I'll give you a heart of flesh. Now flesh, a lot of times it
means sin, but what he's talking about here is a heart that is
pliable and bendable and obedient, not hard hearted. And he says,
I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. That's the gospel. And he says,
and you shall keep my judgments and do them, and you shall dwell
in the land that I gave to your fathers. Now, limited application,
Israel in Palestine, the promised land. But ultimate application,
the land of God's people. spiritual Israel, the kingdom
of God. And you shall be my people and
I'll be your God. So that's talking about the new
birth. Well, over here in our text in
Ezekiel 37, we have a beautiful illustration of that in a vision
that God by the Spirit gave to his prophet Ezekiel in a valley
that was stacked up, piled up with dead, dry bones. And look at what he says in verse
37, verse one. The hand of the Lord was upon
me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord. This is a
vision now. This is how God revealed himself
to his prophets in the Old Testament before they had the word of God
as we have it today. And he set me down in the midst
of the valley which was full of bones and calls me to pass
them round about and behold, there were very many in the open
valley. And lo, they were very dry. These
bones have been there for a long time in this vision. So there's
no question here that these were dead, dry bones. There's no life
there. Somebody said that Ezekiel is
going to preach to a bunch of skeletons. Oh, no. They weren't
even brought together as skeletons. There was just a pile of dead,
dry bones that God showed Ezekiel. And these bones are a picture
that describes all of God's people by nature. We fell in Adam, and
as we are naturally born into a state of spiritual death and
depravity, without life, spiritually speaking, we have physical life,
but we don't have spiritual life. And as there was no physical
life in these bones, none at all, There's no spiritual life
in us as we're born sinful. That's why Christ said you must
be what? Born again. You can't see the
kingdom of God if you're not born again because you don't
have the spiritual eyes that God gives his people to see the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. to see who God is and
who we are in our sinfulness, and to see God's way of salvation
to his glory in Christ, the righteousness of God. And he says, you don't
have ears to hear. And all of that, so in John chapter
three, that's what he talks about to Nicodemus, you must be born
again. And it's born from above, by
the Spirit of God, the Word of God. I'm going to talk about
that today in the main message when we talk about the work of
the Holy Spirit in the application of the benefits and blessings
of salvation in Ephesians chapter 1. So here's the point. Apart from this new birth, this
life-giving power from Christ who is our life giver, we have
no will, no knowledge, no desire to believe in Christ and follow
him. Faith in Christ is not natural to us. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned,
and you can't spiritually discern or judge or value something until
you have spiritual life. So spiritual life is the spirit
giving that unction that John spoke of in 1 John 2.20 that
comes from Christ, our life giver. And so faith doesn't, it's not
the product of our so-called free will. No such thing in spiritually
dead people. Look at these bones. They didn't
have free will, they didn't have a will at all spiritually. or
physically, but we don't have a will spiritually. And faith
is not the product, the new birth, life is not the product of our
decisions, because if left to ourselves, we won't make the
right decision. And so it's the gift of God given
to us through Christ. So here they are, these dry bones.
Now look at verse three. He says, he said unto me, son
of man, can these bones live? Is it possible for these dead,
dry bones to live? Well, our answer naturally would
be no. That's not possible. There are
two great questions that need to be answered if sinners like
us are going to have spiritual and eternal life. And the first
question has to do with the legal aspect of this thing, because
we're sinners, And we've earned and deserve nothing but death
and condemnation. That is, under the law, the law
condemns us. Rightly so, justly so. So the
great question in that matter is how can a sinner be justified
before a holy God? How is that possible? And of
course you know that was posed in the book of Job in several
ways. Job 9.2, Job spoke it. I know it is of truth, so of
a truth, but how should man be just with God? How can a sinner
be right with God? You see, that's our problem.
God must be just when he saves us. It's all right to talk about
God's mercy and God's love and God's grace and those are beautiful
things and we rejoice in them. But if you talk about them without
the justifying righteousness that God has provided through
his son by his grace, they're empty terms. Grace, Romans 521,
grace reigns through righteousness, justice unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord. And of course, that's the answer. The only way that God can be
just and justify me and you is based upon the righteousness
of his son, who is our surety and our substitute and our redeemer,
who satisfied God's justice for our sins charged to him, imputed
to him. And as a result, we have his
righteousness charged to us, imputed to us. And that's how
God justifies the ungodly. So that question's answered in
the preaching of the gospel. Now the next question that is
posed, which is posed to the prophet here that needs to be
answered, is this, can these bones live? How can spiritually
dead sinners have spiritual life? What's the answer? I know years
ago there was a preacher who wrote a book, How to be Born
Again. And basically what he said was, you're born again by
you making a decision to follow Christ. That's not what the Bible
says. Christ didn't tell Nicodemus,
well, you must be born again and here's how you do it, Nicodemus.
You believe in me and then you'll be born. He says, you must be
born again. And he even said it this way,
the spirit, who is the agent, the sovereign agent of the new
birth, it listeth and goeth where it will. You don't know where
it comes from, where it's going. I do know this. Somebody said,
well, how do you know if God's going to give anybody spiritual
life? Here's what I do know. And here's
what the Bible says. If he gives life to you or to
me, it's going to be under the preaching of the gospel, the
truth. And I'll show you that in just
a moment here in this illustration. Can these bones live? Well, we're at a total loss to
answer that question. We can't create physical life,
let alone spiritual life. Can these bones live? Well, listen
to what Ezekiel said in verse three. And I answered, O Lord
God, thou knowest. You know. The creator God. The redeeming God. The life-giving
God. He knows. We don't. He knows. Sinful man's answer
to these questions. How can man be justified? How
can man, spiritually dead people, gain life? How can that happen?
Natural man's answer is always in some form salvation conditioned
on man. It's based upon something man
has to do of his own, as they say, free will. But that is anti-biblical,
anti-gospel. It's not so. And if that were
the case, we'd all be doomed. So don't go with natural man's
answer on this. Well, look at verse four. We'll
read verses four through six here. Here's the answer God gives.
Again, he said unto me, prophesy unto these bones, and say unto
them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Now, isn't
that strange? Prophesy to these bones, preach
to them. That's what he said. Years ago,
I was up in Ohio preaching for Brother Scott Price, and there
was another preacher there who came to visit. And he made the statement to
me after my message, and I can't remember exactly where I was
preaching from, but I had talked about the new birth and how it
comes under the preaching of the word that we go out to all
the world and preach the gospel. And he didn't believe that. He
said, we're only to preach the gospel to those who have been
made alive spiritually. And I said, well, the only way
you know a person's been made alive spiritually is to preach
the gospel to them. And he asked me this question.
He said, would you water a stand, a lawn that was dead grass? Would you do that? I said, I
would if God told me to. And I know this, God's able to
make that grass come alive. And I asked him this question,
would you go preach to a valley full of dead dry bones? And he
turned away, why? Because that's exactly what God
told Ezekiel to do, preach to them. Well, Lord, they're not
gonna hear me. You don't know, God knows the
answer. And what are you gonna preach?
Hear the word of the Lord. Don't preach your own word, your
own ideas, your own issues. Preach God's word, preach the
gospel. And that's what it's talking
about. God's word empowered by the Spirit of God. And I say
amen too, brother, because that's what it's about, isn't it? That's
what it's about. The gospel, Romans 116, is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. In other
words, if a person hears what we say in preaching the gospel
of God's grace wherein the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith, that's from knowledge revealed to knowledge received
and believed, if a person believes that and submits to Christ as
the Lord their righteousness, they've been convicted of sin,
of righteousness, and of judgment, and the Spirit of God has empowered
that to their eternal life. That's what you know. If you
believe it, you don't have anything to brag in of yourselves. It's
God who brought you to believe it. He gave you the gift of faith
and repentance. And so look at verse five, he
says, thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold, now
listen to it, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you
and you shall live. Tell these bones that God says
he'll cause breath to enter into you and you shall there. Ezekiel
didn't cause breath to enter into these bones. Ezekiel didn't
give them life. He just preached the word of
God and God did the work. God, it's the power of God and
the salvation. And so what we see is the Holy
Spirit who is the divine sovereign agent in the new birth, the word
of God, the gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus is the instrument. Begotten again, James 118, by
the word of truth. Faith cometh by what? Hearing. And who gives us the hearing?
God does. And hearing by the word of God.
So whenever people want to talk about being regenerated and converted
or born again without the gospel, don't listen to them. They're
not speaking biblically. You know, that's why a lot of
people refuse, like the Pharisees, to be converted. You know, if
God leaves us to ourselves, think about that, where we would be.
So he says in verse six, look here, he says, and I will lay
sinews upon you. You know, that's sinews, that's
the tendons and the ligaments that bring bones together. And
I will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put
breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am
the Lord. Now that cannot refer to the physical nation of Israel
because one of the main complaints, even when God brought them out
of captivity from Babylon and brought them back into the promised
land, one of the main complaints of the prophets is they do not
know the Lord. They have the law, they have
the word, but God didn't empower it to their regeneration. He
had a few, he had a remnant, you know. But they didn't know
God. But whoever he's talking about
here in illustration, they're gonna know the Lord. And what
did Christ say in John 17 three? This is life eternal that they
might know thee and thee only and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent. Eternal life is to know God as a just God and a savior,
as our heavenly father. And so they were quick and he
said, I'll cause breath to enter in to this. Well, let me give
you an, turn over to the book of Acts chapter seven. And I
want to give you this, because there's always some objections
that people will raise when they see certain scriptures. And try
to use them as proof text. And the question comes, can man
or woman resist the Holy Spirit? Now what Ezekiel is talking about
here in this vision, what the Lord is showing him, is an irresistible
calling. If this calling by the Spirit
comes to a sinner, that sinner cannot resist it. It's an invincible
calling. It's an irresistible calling.
It's an effectual calling. It's the calling of God to his
chosen people And God said that back over in chapter 36 of Ezekiel. He said, I'm gonna call them
out of the nations, I'm gonna bring them together, and I'm
gonna put a new heart in them, and they shall come to me. They shall do that, they'll believe. That's the work of God, and he's
gonna do it. But in the book of Acts chapter seven, this is
Stephen, the evangelist, preaching to unbelievers. And they did
resist. It says in verse 51, look at
Acts 7, 51. You stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears. Now, what is to be uncircumcised
in heart and ears? Well, that's to be left in our
natural state. You know, the Bible calls the
new birth circumcision of the heart. Paul spoke of that in Romans
2, 28. He says, he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, and circumcision
is that not of the flesh, not physical, but that which is of
the heart. If you're born again by the Spirit
and come to faith in Christ by the power of God, you've been
circumcised in the heart. The cutting away the filth of
the flesh, that idea that we naturally have that we can work
our way to heaven. God puts that out of us and makes
us bow to his sovereign grace. Only God can save me, salvations
of the Lord. And so here's what Stephen says,
you stiff neck and uncircumcised and hard ears, you do resist
the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do you. Now, does that
mean when the Holy Spirit comes in the effectual call that people
can resist? No, because when the Holy Spirit
comes in the effectual, invincible call, what does he do? He circumcises
us in heart and ears. And so Stephen said to these
people, you're uncircumcised in heart and ears. How do you
know that, Stephen? Well, look at, let's see, it's verse 54. Here's how he knew it. When they
heard these things, the gospel that Stephen preached, they were
cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth. They
were so angry that they gritted their teeth at him. And of course,
you know what happened next. They picked up stones to kill
him. When a person hears the gospel,
and they do not come to faith in Christ, and they walk out
unaffected, they're uncircumcised in heart and ears. God did not
send the Spirit in power to bring them to saving faith. And that's
God's business. Well, look back at Acts chapter
two. Now here's another man, Peter, preaching at Pentecost,
and he preached the gospel, same gospel that Stephen preached,
But look at verse 37 of Acts chapter two. It says, now when
they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. That's the language
of conviction. And said unto Peter and to the
rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? They
were pricked. Now who did that? The Holy Spirit
did that. They were circumcised in heart
and ears and they became convicted and realized that they need Christ. They need a righteousness they
can't produce. That's the effectual, invincible
calling that Ezekiel's talking about in chapter 36 and here
is illustrated by these dead, dry bones in chapter 37. So let's
go back to chapter 37 of Ezekiel. See, Christ is the life giver
of his people. The life that the Holy Spirit
imparts and applies to God's elect in time to bring them to
Christ. That life comes from the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our life giver. He died, he was buried,
he arose from the dead, and he's now working all things after
the counsel of his own will to bring his people to himself by
the power of the spirit under the word. And he says, all that
the father giveth me shall what? Come to me. And him that cometh
me I will in no wise cast out. Well, look at verse seven. Ezekiel
says, so I prophesied as I was commanded. Just like I told that
fella, he asked me, would you water a dead stand of grass?
I would if God commanded me. You say, well, that doesn't make
sense to me. Maybe me neither, but God has a purpose. And he
said, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking,
and the bones came together bone to bone. See, this is Christ
the life giver. And when I beheld lo, the sinews
and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above,
but there was no breath in them. You remember when God created
Adam, and then he breathed the breath of life into him? That's
what's happening here. And verse nine, it says, then
he said unto me, prophesy unto the wind, the wind is the breath
there, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith
the Lord God. He didn't say, now, Ezekiel,
you command the wind to come in. He said, tell him, thus saith
the Lord God. Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So that's
Christ the life giver. And so he says in verse 11, then
he said unto me, son of man, these bones are the whole house
of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are
dry and our hope is lost. We are cut off for our parts.
Now again, there's a limited application to the nation. While
they were in captivity, they complained, you know, that their
hope was lost and all of that. But look at the rest of it. Verse
12, therefore prophesy and say unto them, thus saith the Lord
God, behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you
to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of
Israel. Now you could say that the Lord did that when he brought
him out of captivity and put him in the land of Israel. That's
the physical providence of God. And of course you know that the
reason God did all that was because he meant to keep those people
together until Christ came into the world. But what this is referring
to ultimately is how God in the new birth, he literally raises
us from the dead spiritually. and you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sin. That's right. Just like old Lazarus
came out of that grave when Christ cried out, Lazarus, come forth! And Lazarus come out of the grave.
Whenever you're under, and one of his sheep are under the preaching
of the gospel, and he said, Audrey, come forth. Leon, come forth. Frank, come forth. Jim, come
forth. All, that's how it happens. And it says in verse 13, now
look here, now this is how we know the ultimate application
of this is to spiritual Israel. And you shall know that I am
the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought
you up out of your grave. And shall put my spirit in you,
and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land, then
shall you know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed
it, saith the Lord. Now again, I keep harping on
this because I know how people are when they want to challenge
these truths. They'll say, well, that's what
he did to national Israel, to a point. But those people never
came to a saving knowledge of God in Christ. Only a remnant
of them did. But the nation as a whole perished.
And of course, they lasted up until Christ, and then in AD
70, he scattered them all, destroyed them all. But that's Christ our
life giver. If we have life, it's he who
gave it to us. And it came forth out of his
death. His righteousness is what gives
us life. Amen.