Well, when Israel was walking
through, was traveling through the wilderness, and they complained
of hunger, God sent them manna from on high. But I don't know
if you remember the account of that, that they were told to
collect it fresh every morning. And they weren't to keep it,
because if they kept Mondays until Tuesday, then Tuesdays
went off, and it had worms in it, and it didn't smell good. You know, there's a spiritual
application in that, is that, you know, the same spiritual
freshness that can come down at times, you mustn't think you
can just reuse it. You can't just put it in a store
pot and get it out again and reuse it. I remember when I first
preached on this passage in Ezekiel 37, and one or two of you will
remember it, I think, it was, I'm pretty sure it was 1989,
and it was in the room that we used to rent in the campus west
in Wellingarden City, and we used to record on cassette tape,
and I don't know, there were probably about the same number
in that room as there are in this room now, I guess, and it went
on tape to our brethren in the USA, and I know that Paul Mahan
got hold of that tape. And he wrote to me, and he said,
when you come over, which we were about to do, he said, please,
will you bring that message to our congregation? So I went down
to Rocky Mount. They'd only just got there. They'd
only been there about six months. And I preached in the morning,
and then they had an evening service in those days. And he
said, preach that message again. Oh dear, it fell flat. And ever
since then I've been so wary of coming back to Ezekiel 37,
you know? Is it just going to be stale
manna that's gone off? I trust not. I trust not. It's
in sequence of what we've been looking at, you know, we've been
led to look, as we did last week, that God promises he shall save
his flock. God saves his sheep, his people. He saves them. He does it all.
It's not by the will of man, nor the will of the flesh. He
does it. But the question is, well, how? What means does he
use to save his flock? This passage teaches us how God
saves his flock. Look at the last two verses of
the previous chapter in 36, verse 37. Thus saith the Lord God. I will
yet for this be inquired of by them of the house of Israel.
God wants us to pray to him. to do it for them. He's going
to do it for them, but he wants to be prayed to by the house
of Israel to do it for them. I will increase them with men
like a flock. You see the sheep, when the Bible
talks about the sheep of God, it's talking about people. Jesus
says he's the good shepherd, and his sheep are his people
that believe him. He says I will increase them
with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock
of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts, so shall the waste cities be
filled with flocks of men, and they shall know that I am the
Lord." In these days when Ezekiel was writing, they were in the
captivity in Babylon. Jerusalem and Judah was a wasteland. It had been destroyed. They hadn't
yet gone back. It looked like a complete barren
wasteland, like you look around this land of ours. and you look
for where the true gospel is preached, and you see one or
two little candles flickering away. But generally speaking,
you see wastelands of nothing whatsoever. God says, I'm going
to save my sheep out of those situations. He's going to do
it. He declares. He declares. People
say, people in religion say, you've probably heard this, people
say, God has no hands but your hands. You know, if it's going
to happen, you've got to do it. God has no hands but your hands. And so what do men do in religion?
They devise schemes aimed at men. They devise the schemes
for the church that might be applicable in the business place,
but that's what they do. They've got to do something for
God to do what he says he's going to do. God declares to Ezekiel,
through Ezekiel to us, how he uses his servants in the salvation
of his flock. That's what this is about. How
God uses his servants in the salvation of his flock. The dry
bones, it's so well known. But let's look at it again. Verses
one and two. The hand of the Lord was upon
me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me
down in the midst of the valley, which was full of bones. He's
having a vision of this place, and it looks like the scene of
an ancient battle. It's a long since finished battle. If it would be a dreadful scene,
and I know movie makers have tried to depict it, and with
varying degrees of success, but for example, In these lands,
if you went to the site of the Battle of Clodden, up near Inverness,
on that moor up there, and if you'd gone there in 17 whenever
it was, I'm not that good at history, don't look up the dates
for me please, but you know what I'm talking about, and when Butcher
Cumberland, he was called, absolutely annihilated the Scots armies.
And that field would have been a dreadful looking place. It
was full of the dead, bleeding bodies of newly dead people. If they left it there, which
you'd be surprised if they did in a lot of ways, and you'd gone
there two or three years later, you probably would have found
a lot of dry bones. This is the scene. He goes through
a valley of dry bones. It's full of bones. He calls
me to pass by them, round about, and behold, there were very many
in the open valley. There was an awful lot of them.
There were huge numbers of these bones, and lo, they were very
dry. They were bone-dry bones, very,
very dry bones. Look at verse 11. What are these
bones? Then he said to me, son of man,
he tells us, you see, he tells us, these bones are the whole
house of Israel. That's who they are. They represent
the people of God, the Israel of God, the whole house of Israel. These bones represent the people
that God has purposed to save. Yes, in a sense, they represent
all mankind, All mankind is dead in trespasses and sins. All mankind
is as lifeless spiritually as these bones depict. But he's
talking about those people that he's going to save in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the whole house of Israel. This is all mankind
from the fall, but it's specifically the flock of God. It's specifically
the elect of God. There were very, very many John
saw a multitude that no man can number. There's a multitude that
no man can number. A multitude the number of which
is known to God and to God alone. He saw very, very many. This
is the multitude of those that the Father gave to the Son before
the beginning of time, but all of them are sinners. All of them
are sinners separated from God. All of them are what Ephesians
2 verses 1 to 4 describe the state of the people of God. They're
dead in trespasses and sins. They're not just sick in trespasses
and sins, they're dead in trespasses and sins. They're what he calls
children of wrath, even as others. Children of wrath, the ones that
the Father has chosen before the beginning of time, until
they come to a knowledge of the truth and belief in the Lord
Jesus Christ, they are children of wrath just like everybody
else, indistinguishable from everybody else. And he's talking
about these people. In Romans chapter 3, talking
about the human race as a whole, Paul quotes the Old Testament
and in verse 10 he talks about there being none righteous, no
not one. They've all gone out of the way.
Their mouths are full of lies. It's this litany of condemnation
against people in general. And then you get down to verse
23, and he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God. And yes, it's true that you can
apply that to the whole of mankind, but if you look at it in context,
if you look back at one verse at verse 22 of Romans 3, it's
talking about them that believe. them that believe, all of them,
every single one, have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God. Every single one of them that become, you know, in their
experience, the people of God, are dead in trespasses and sins.
Every single one of them, it can be said of, none is righteous,
no, not one. There's not one righteous in
himself. They're all dead bones. These
dry bones are the whole of the House of Israel. They're the
Israel of God, that God has ordained that he shall save. He's determined
that he shall save them. And they're long dead. They're
long dead. They're well beyond, you know,
you have a very rare steak, and people will make the joking quip
that a good vet could probably bring it round. This was long
dead. These bones were long dead. They're
completely beyond the ability of the best vet to do anything
with them, these bones. They're dead. They're dry. They're
absolutely shriveled up. And this is a lesson that we
must learn. What means does God use to save
his flock. He has determined that he will
save his flock. What means does he use to save
his flock? If we start to think that there's
the least little bit of spiritual awareness in people around us,
in the natural man, then we'll try to reason with it, won't
we? We'll try to use things that will appeal to that natural state
of man. it will affect the way that we
conduct our evangelism and try to reach people. We'll start
to adopt gimmicks, the gimmicks of this world. We'll start to
think up all sorts of trickery whereby we can catch them unawares. We'll start to make them think
that we're nothing more than a really nice social club. where
you can have all of your social loneliness dealt with, and come
on, we're such friendly, nice, warm people. Just come along
to us. We're a family. Come and join
the family, you know? And before you know it, hey,
guess what? We can slip in the odd little
word about the gospel. And before you know it, they've
got so used to being warmly accepted in amongst the community that
they won't want to leave it. You see, it's the trickery of
this world. Man, and those that God is going
to save by his grace, they're dead in trespasses and sins.
They're dead. You cannot reason with a corpse.
They're dead. You cannot bring the things of
the Spirit of God and expect the natural man to respond to
them, for the natural man doesn't receive the things of the Spirit
of God. They're foolishness to him. Neither can he know them.
Why not? Because he's the natural man who is dead in trespasses
and sins. The elect that God will most
certainly save and take to glory, all that elect that God has determined
to save and he's going to take them to glory, they're exactly
like the rest of the fallen human race until they give evidence
that they are the elect of God by their faith and by their belief.
You know, when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he says, we're
bound to give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved, because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. How does he
know? Through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. They believe the true gospel. That is the mark of those
whom God has elected to salvation. But until they do that, They're
children of wrath, exactly as the others. They're dry bones.
There's a world out there of dry bones and amongst them are
the elect of God. But don't for one minute think
that the persuasiveness that you would use with a live living
person can be used on dead dry bones. It can't. It just will
not work. So God says, to the prophet,
verse 3, look what he says. He said to me, look here you've
seen a vision of what this whole house of Israel is like in its
natural fleshly state. It's a valley of dry bones. But
aren't we on the trail of getting people to believe the gospel
of grace? Yeah, look at the material. Those that God has chosen in
Christ before the beginning of time will most certainly be there
in glory. But look at them now, a valley
of dry bones. What must you do? He says, son
of man, can these bones live? What would natural reasoning
say? Absolutely not. No chance at all. I answered,
oh Lord God, thou knowest. That's the wise answer. That's
the wise answer of the man of God. God knows whether these
bones can live. And if they do, it's all of God. Can anything so dead come to
life? Can such children of wrath become
children of God? Can those who are like we know
we are, if we truly know we're the children of God, we know
first of all what we're like in our natural state. We know,
as Paul said, in my flesh, in me, that is in my flesh, there
dwells no good thing, that I'm vile and corrupted, that I am
a worm, as Job. That man that God said to Satan,
have you considered my servant Job? There's none like him, one
who eschews evil. And when Job saw what he was
really like, he abhorred himself. When he saw who God really was,
he abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes. vile and polluted. Can such dead, dry bones become,
what the New Testament tells us, the righteousness of God
in Christ? Can those dead, dry bones become
the righteousness of God in Christ? Religious man says this, this
is what religion says, yes, if I preach the law to them. If
I threaten them with the law of God, if I put a burden of
the law of God upon them, if I bind them with religious obligation,
yes, yes, they can live if I do all these things. If I discipline
their behavior, if I organize their social life, if I get them
to give of their money, if I do all of these things, yes, I can
make them live. And isn't that what's happening?
in so-called evangelical religion all around us? Keep them busy,
give them jobs to do, burden them with law, do all of these
things. Can these bones live? Yes, if I do all these things
to them. Look what Romans says. Paul says, writing to the Romans
in chapter 7, verses 5, 9, and 10. He says, for when we were
in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, we
knew about them because of the law, they did work in our members
to bring forth fruit. Oh, that's hopeful, isn't it?
No, read on. Fruit unto death. That's what it did. The law brought
forth fruit unto death. For I was alive without the law
once, when I had no consciousness of it. But when the commandment
came, Paul said in his case it was when the commandment came,
thou shalt not covet. He thought he'd done all the
rest. He was a good Pharisee. But when the commandment came,
thou shalt not covet, sin revived and I died. And the commandment,
which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. Can these bones
live? Not by the law. Others say this
in religion. Yes, if I pander to their fleshly
desires, if I give them some nice company, if I give them
events to come to, and entertainment, and a community, and financial
help, and all of these things, then I'll persuade them, forgetting
how dead these bones really are. The people of God in their natural
state are dead, dry bones, children of wrath, even as others. But
God's servant knows the right answer to that question. Son
of man, can these bones live? Oh Lord God, thou knowest. Salvation
is of the Lord and of him alone. He is the one who alone can give
life. He is the one who alone does
give life. John 17, verse two. Jesus, praying the night before
his crucifixion, prays to his father. As thou hast given him,
himself, the Son of Man, power over all flesh, that he, what
was this power for? That he should give, it's his
gift, to grant eternal life. That's in his gift. It's not
something we work for or earn, it's in His gift to give, that
He should give eternal life. To whom? Who does He give that
gift of eternal life to? As many as the Father has given
to the Son. Is the scripture uncertain about
this? Is there any doubt whatsoever?
The Son has power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life
to as many as the Father has given to the Son. Can these bones
live? Yes. You know God. You know,
O Lord. It's in your hands. How do we
know? In the beginning, in the Garden
of Eden. God created all things and then he created man. And
he formed Adam out of the dust of the ground. Out of the elements
and the compounds that make up this creation. And he breathed
the breath of life into Adam. God breathed life into the dust
of the earth in creating Adam. If he can do that, can he not
breathe life into these dead bones? Can these bones live?
So all Whatever they look like spiritually are within God's
capacity to give life. And is there not a lesson here
for us? You know, you look around at those dear ones to you, those
who are your relatives and friends and neighbors and acquaintances
and colleagues in the flesh. And your soul bleeds for them
as you look at their lost condition. Don't ever give up hope for them.
They're just dry bones like everybody else, but all of God's people
are dry bones as they are, children of wrath even as others before
they hear the word of life. So what is God's instruction
then? Yes, it's within his gift to give life. Can these bones
live? Yes, it's in the power of God to do it. What's God's
instruction to his servants? What's the means that God uses
to save his flock? He's promised to do it. What's
the means that he uses? Verse 4, again he said to me,
prophesy unto these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord.' Does this not seem the most incongruous
thing to do, the most illogical thing to do? It's a valley full
of dead bones. You know, preach to a live audience,
yes, but preach to a valley of dead bones? How bizarre does
that seem? How foolish does that seem? Prophesy
to these dead bones. Preach to these dead bones. It's
foolishness. As Paul writes to the Corinthians,
1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 21, for after that in the wisdom
of God, this is God's doing. In the wisdom of God, the world
by its wisdom knew not God. The world by its wisdom that
has created all the technology we see all around us and done
such wonderful things, the world did not know God despite having
all of that knowledge. But it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching. The foolishness of the message
preached, because that message is to the Greeks, to the ordinary
non-religious folks, it's foolishness. that a substitute should be the
means by which God saves his people. And to the Jews, to the
religious folks, it's a stumbling block because don't they work
for their salvation? God says, do this and live, so
we're trying to do it. And you're coming along saying,
look to him who has done. That's a stumbling block to the
religious folks. And to the Greeks, it's foolishness,
but it's by the foolishness of preaching. It's by the picture
that sounds so foolish, a man standing on a wooden pulpit as
in As in Ezra, when they come back, after this prophecy, they
come back to Jerusalem, and they build the temple, and Nehemiah
comes and builds the walls, and they get Ezra, and they build
him a pulpit, and he stands on the pulpit, and he pronounces
clearly, so that they can all understand the word of the Lord.
That that should happen to a valley of dry bones seems so bizarre. You know, you ask anybody that's
involved either in preaching, or in public communicating, or
the comedians of this world, what do they need? They need
an audience to bounce off, they need some reaction, they need
to see what's going on, but we're told, preach to a valley of dry
bones, because that's what man is by nature, spiritually. May look alive, there may be
fleshly life, But until the Spirit of God comes, they're dry bones.
Preach to them, he says. Preach to them. We preach Christ
crucified, says Paul a couple of verses on in 1 Corinthians.
How shall they preach? Sorry, how shall they hear? Romans
10. How shall they hear without a preacher? Paul there, writing
to the Romans, he says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. Well, how shall they call on
that which they haven't heard of? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? But not just any preacher. There's plenty of preachers
around. The world's full of preachers.
No shortage of preachers. It's what they say. Look, prophesy
to these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord." Hear the word of the Lord. That's what you're
to preach. Hear the word of the Lord. What do most who call themselves
preachers preach? They preach the scriptures strained
through the filter of human religious thinking and reasoning. What
he calls for is for the word of the Lord to be preached to
these dry bones. This is what the word of the
Lord is. I know for convenience, wise men of the past have used
this mnemonic, tulip. And it's a good summary. Preach
to them the total depravity, the total deadness of these dry
bones. Preach to them that these bones
can live because God has ordained that he will unconditionally,
without any response on their part, elect a multitude to eternal
life. Unconditional election. That
that accomplishment of salvation is limited. Oh, we don't want
to limit it, do we? I know people prefer the term
particular redemption to limited atonement, and I use that term
a lot myself. But it means that the work of
Christ, the redeeming work of Christ, was very specific. It
was for the multitude the Father gave to the Son before the beginning
of time. It wasn't for the generality of mankind should they choose
to believe it. This is a great error, and it's
so rampant in our day. Even in those places that call
themselves Calvinistic and true to the Scriptures, you hear it
more and more, you read what they say, you read the doctrinal
statements that they're basing what they do today on, and it
comes down to this. that Christ made a generalized
salvation possible for all mankind and that salvation becomes effective
when the sinner decides to accept it. That's not the truth of scripture.
That's not the truth. That's not the word of the Lord.
Preach to them the irresistible grace of God, that it's He who
comes, the Holy Spirit comes and gives life. And when He has
given life, He has said He will not lose any whom He has saved. He will take every single one
of them to glory. They will persevere to the end.
And that it's all based on Christ, being put in Him before the beginning
of time in eternity, being called in him, being named in him, being
justified in him from all eternity. That he came in time to represent
those people who he called his sheep. This is the will of my
father who sent me. That of all that the father has
given me, I should lose nothing. Not a solitary one of them should
be lost. This is it. Preach the word of
the Lord to this valley of dry bones. This goes out on the internet. There'll be people who look at
it. I'm sure there are people around here. I know, I know from
the sermon audio stats. I know. Do you know? The mid
Hertfordshire area in this country is an area that has a lot of
hits on our sermons. It really is. People pretend
they're not listening. I know that there are plenty
that do. I know that there are people
all around the world that do. I just find it absolutely staggering
in these days that these little groups, like we are, dotted around
By the means of the internet, it is reaching, it's reaching
these dry bones that are out there with the truth of the gospel
of grace. But what the natural man, the religious man says is
this, but look at it. This was the era of Andrew Fuller,
200 or so years ago. Look, nobody comes. People are
not interested. Look at Datchworth. How many
people are here from Datchworth? Not a solitary one. We just rent
the village hall here. That's all that happens. But
so what? Who is it that gives life? Is
it God, or is it religious man? Is it the persuasiveness of man,
or is it the power of God from on high? Verse 5, Thus saith
the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I, this is God speaking,
I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.
You who know you were dead in trespasses and sins with no spiritual
life or with nothing other than religion know when God caused
you to hear his voice, caused breath to come into you, gave
you spiritual awareness. What did he do? He gave you a
fear. He gave you a fear of God. He
gave you a fear of judgment to come. He gave you a sight of
what you are really like by nature. He gave you a sight of your fallen
nature, of your sinfulness, of the offense that your sin is
to Him. of your need of a Savior. To
cry out as Job did, how shall a man, how can I be just with
God? How can I be justified with God? God did that. God caused that
breath to enter. Verse six, and I will lay sinews
upon you, and I will bring flesh upon you and cover you with skin,
and put the breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall
know that I am the Lord. It's God that does that. God
alone. Not our schemes. Not the things
that we try to do to persuade. He does it. And how does he do
it? When his servants faithfully say to the dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. Not my opinions, not straining
the scriptures through the filter of my own opinions. Now what's
the result? Look at verses seven and eight. Verses seven and eight. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, as he preached,
there was a noise, and behold, a shaking, and the bones came
together, bone to his bone. 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." No breath in them. Man's preaching, religious preaching,
can and does stir a response. We'd be fools if we didn't accept
that that's the case. Oratory can be very, very powerful. It can cause a rattling of the
dry bones as they come together. Oratory can be very powerful.
Think in recent history of Hitler, the way he held sway over hordes
and hordes, huge crowds, and Churchill, how Churchill powerfully
influenced the mood of an entire nation, of an entire force against that evil of Nazism. And even, as I've already mentioned,
modern day comedians, but even them, you know, you see them
at the big centers, like the big Excel Center in London, that
huge arena with thousands of people in there. I don't know
how many thousand it holds, but it's very, very big. And you
get one man on the stage, and he's got that entire crowd, as
it were, eating out of his hand. You know, oratory can be very
powerful of whatever sort it is, but God's preachers are told
this. God's preachers are told this,
Jeremiah 23 verse 28, He that hath my word, let him speak my
word faithfully. Let him speak my, this is what's
required of God's servants. Speak my word faithfully. Oh, but we do. Do you really?
Look at it, look at it. Do you really? You claim that
you haven't moved from where you were. Do you really preach
God's word faithfully? Are you really true to that doctrine,
that which he has revealed concerning salvation? You see, what they
produce is an appearance of life But they're dead, waxwork dummies,
except God give life. The bones come together, they're
covered with an appearance of flesh. This is what we see around
us in so much religion. It's an appearance of spiritual
life, but they're just waxwork dummies. God gives life, and
how will that be? Chapter 36. Just look back, the
verses we read earlier, just before chapter 37. This is how it will be. God says,
I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel. Prayer. Prayer. Look at verse 9 of chapter
37. Then he said unto me, prophesy. And here the word means not preach
but pray. Pray unto the wind, pray, son
of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain
that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood
up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Pray for life. This is what we're to do. I will
yet be inquired of the House of Israel for these things. It
isn't just mechanical. God will be inquired of. God
will be prayed to for these things. He wants to do it. He will do
it. Anything God wants, He will do. He will do this, but He will
be inquired of the House of Israel for it. Pray for life. Pray for
saving faith. Pray for God-given life. Pray
for the wind of God. the Spirit of God, to blow and
to breathe on these slain, slain by the fall, these dry bones
who are the elect of God chosen in Christ, but dead in trespasses
and sins, pray that God the Holy Spirit will come. And where there
is no life, that he will give life, that they may live. John
chapter 3, verses 5 to 8, Jesus talking to Nicodemus, verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that's why it can't understand
spiritual things. And that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit, and that's that new man that the Spirit
of God gives, that cannot sin, that loves the things of God.
And the two are in the one man when he's become a Christian,
when he's become a true believer, and they're warring against one
another, the flesh and the spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. Pray. to the Spirit of God. Pray,
blow wind unto the wind, prophesy, Son of Man, say to the wind,
thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain that they may live. It's not
the preacher who gives life. It's not the word alone who gives
life. But it is God the Holy Spirit
who gives life. John chapter 16 and verse 8,
Jesus says this concerning the Holy Spirit, and when he, the
Holy Spirit, is come, he will reprove the world of sin. He
is the one who comes and puts life in those dead dry bones
and of righteousness and of judgment. We're to preach the word of God
faithfully. As Jeremiah said, he that hath
my word, let him speak my word faithfully. We're to preach that
word faithfully to all without distinction. That's what I say
about what we do here. We'll preach to whoever will
listen to us, whether it be via the internet or they come through
these doors. We'll preach to any without distinction that
come in. We make no distinction at all.
We may be accused of being hyper-Calvinists, but we will preach to any without
distinction. But we know that it's God that
does the saving. We pray God to give repentance. We pray God to do what He did
for these bones. Look in verse 11 again. These
bones are the whole house of Israel, and behold what these
bones say. Look what these bones say. They
know it. Our bones are dried, and our
hope is lost, and we are cut off for our parts. They know
what they are as sinners. This is what God does. You know,
what was the sign that the gospel was going to the Gentiles in
the Acts of the Apostles? They were able to report, Peter
was able to report, God has granted unto the Gentiles repentance. A knowledge of sin, repentance
from sin. He's given that knowledge to
them. This is what God does to these dry bones that are his.
They are able to say, we know what we are. We know that we're
dead in trespasses and sins. We know that we're separated
from God. The saints of God know God and fear him. and know that
they're what they're like in their flesh and they come to
an end of themselves in the flesh like the prodigal they come to
an end of themselves they stop trying to work and they say I
must go home to my father's house so we pray for God to do this
Jesus says this John chapter 5 verses 24 and 25 verily verily
I say unto you he that heareth my word and believeth, preachers
faithfully preach it, to dead dry bones, he that heareth my
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into
life. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming, and now is when the dead, dead dry bones,
Dead dry bones shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
they that hear shall live. God will cause his people to
hear the voice of the gospel of his grace, and they that hear
shall live, because they are his people, and he will cause
them to hear his voice. He will cause them to hear his
voice, that spiritual voice. given by that life-giving Spirit,
that wind to which we are to pray, the Spirit of God, come
and blow on these dead, dry bones that they may live. You know,
the apostles, we're told, in Acts 17, verse 6, turned the
world upside down. By doing what? By preaching faithfully
the Word of God, and by praying. They turned the world upside
down. You know, there's plenty of movement, start, trying to
do something dramatic. There's not a lot that can be
said to turn the world upside down, but the politicians of
the day said these believers have turned the world upside
down. Look at the ultimate result,
verse 10. Verse 10, so I prophesied as he commanded me. And the breath
came into them, and they lived and stood up upon their feet,
an exceeding great army. And obviously I can't go by this
without telling you my usual illustration. Trooping of the
color, horse guards parade, early June in the summer when the queen
comes to look at her troops. And I remember being in the combine
cadet force at school. 11 years old, I absolutely hated
it, I wasn't cut out to be a soldier. But I remember the parade of
the Combined Cadet Force and I remember this particular summer,
unusual for the north of England, but it was very hot. It was incredibly
hot. Boys were faint, because of all
the heavy uniform that they had on, boys were fainting in the
heat. And you could see these ranks
of soldiers in their uniform. And one would fall over and collapse,
and they'd come and carry him off. And then another one would
follow. It's so obvious when there's one missing from a rank
of soldiers. But every one that God chose
in Christ before the foundation of the world, not one of them
will be lost. Not a solitary one of them. You'll
see it. Look at the temple, the bricks,
this is another picture. The stone blocks cut perfectly
to make the temple. And somebody's pinched one of
the stones, yeah? Is it not obvious? Look, there's
a stone missing. You don't notice all the ones
that are there, but you notice the ones that are missing. They
stood on their feet, a great army. Who? All Israel shall be
saved. This is all the house of Israel.
This is all that the Father gave to the Son. Look at verses 12
to 14, we must finish. 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. You dry bones, He will do this.
The land of Israel is Zion, it's the church of God. It's the dwelling
place of God. Verse 13, and ye shall know,
the people of God know this, the people of God know this,
that I am the Lord. When I have opened your graves,
O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall
put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land, the church, his people, the fellowship of
his people. Then shall ye know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. Has he not
indeed done all that he said? God will accomplish his purpose
perfectly. None shall be lost. All who know
Our bones are dried and our hope is lost. We're sinners without
hope. All who know that, I tell you, all shall be brought to
rest in the redemption that Christ has accomplished for them. Come
unto me, said Jesus. Come unto me, all you. What,
everybody without exception? No. He puts a qualifier on it. All who labor and are heavy laden,
knowing our bones are dried, our hope is lost. Come to Him,
and He shall give you rest. They shall all know the truth
of God, as God again and again promises, His people shall be
His people and know it. And they shall know that He is
their God, who does all things right, who does all things for
them, who causes all things to work together for good for them.
They shall know the truth of God. They shall know the justice
of God. They shall know the salvation
of God, not by the reason of the natural man, but by the new
life that God breathes into their lifeless bodies. This is how
God saves his flock. He raised up Judah in these days
from Babylonian captivity. He raises up dead churches at
different times in history with the gospel of his grace. No,
He raises up a preacher who preaches the gospel of His grace. He raises
up individual believers by giving them new life. And He will raise
up the whole army of His people in eternal glory.