Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our first reading, Ezekiel
chapter 37, Ezekiel 37 and verse 3. Verse 3, And he said unto
me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, Thou
knowest. Ezekiel 37 verse 3. And in this account we have dry
bones that are turned into living people. And so we would begin
with the vision that the prophet had. We would remember that this
is a time that the children of Israel were in captivity. They were in Babylon and Ezekiel
in Babylon and he is prophesying those words that should be a
comfort and a strength to God's people. Those that were spiritual
among them would have seen Israel departed tremendously from what
they once were, and though the promises were given that they
would be returning to their own land and would be a people again,
yet they must at this time have appeared very much like these
dry bones, very scattered, and to have no life and to have really
no semblance of the people of God at all. And to the end of
time there will be that need for the Lord through His servants
and through those of His people to encourage a people when they
seem to be so low, yea, when they are very low, and when they
are very discouraged and very feeling to be not what they once
were, and also to have so little, yea, feelingly no life in them,
at all, and may we approach the word this morning as a word that
is to be an encouragement and a help to us. We might be encouraged
in what the Lord has plans for us and what he will do for us,
the same as in these Old Testament prophecies, the plans and purposes
of God that he had for his people that He would bless them, that
He would bring forth Christ, and that through our Lord Jesus
Christ, He would bless not just the Jews, but the Gentiles also,
that they might be brought from spiritual death to spiritual
life, and that He would ordain the means for that to happen. Our Lord in His days spoke many
times through the use of parables. And we see that in the days of
the prophets, in the inspired Word of God, parables are used
as well as in this case. And so we have a picture where
Ezekiel is brought in the Spirit and set down in the midst of
a valley that was full of bones. and the Spirit caused him first
to dwell upon those bones and to look very carefully at them
to notice how many there were and that they were very dry.
And then the question is asked in our text, He said unto me,
Son of man, can these bones live? What a question to ask. But what
a wonderful answer that was given. And I answered, O Lord God, Thou
knowest. Now there'll be many times that
we have situations in which maybe asked of us or maybe the question
is posed in our own mind as to whether there can be any change,
whether there can be life where there appears death, or whatever
it is concerning the Word of God. There's many traps, there's
many things. Peter, he warns concerning the
Apostle Paul that in his writings there are many things that are
hard to be understood, that they that are unlearned and unstable
rest or twist to their own destruction. And so when there are things
that we cannot understand or don't know, It is often a dangerous
place. The eunuch was asked by Philip,
understandest thou what thou readest? And he didn't. How can I except some man guide
me? And yet he did desire that Philip
should come up and into the chariot and guide him. And so this is
a good answer, is a good answer for us when we're looking upon
things that seem impossible, looking upon things which seem
so dear, may be our own heart, our own church, our congregation,
the city, the town in which we live, those round about us, our
neighbours, our friends, Lord, those things that the Lord may
set before us and pose in our hearts and in our minds. Can
these that are so dead, can they live? And the answer, I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest. And so then he, as further things
shone unto him, the Lord said unto him, Prophesy upon these
bones, or preach unto them, speak unto them, and it's very clear
what he was, it was the word of the Lord, hear the word of
the Lord. And even in that setting forth
the word of the Lord to them, it was to say, O ye dry bones,
addressing them as such, reminder that even while the word of the
Lord is being spoken to these bones, they are dry bones. There is not to be a hindrance
that the words should be spoken to them in that condition. And then we have the Lord saying
that these bones, behold, I will cause breath entering to you,
and ye shall live. He tells what shall be done first,
and how sinews should be laid upon them, flesh upon them, and
breath in them. And the end result, you shall
know that I am the Lord. And Ezekiel does as the Lord
has bid him to do. And it comes to pass, as God
said, it would come to pass. And then the Lord applies it
in verse 11 through to 14. He says that these bones are
the whole house of Israel. is led forth from the vision
and from what he is seeing, and he views the whole house of Israel. And the Lord knows what they
have been saying. The Lord knows that what we have
been saying, what you have been saying, and they're saying here,
our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our
pants. Very often in the word of the
Lord, there is an addressing by the Lord of the words and
thoughts of his people that are so dejected and low. We think of Isaiah 49, where
the people of God says that the Lord hath forsaken them. And
he says, can a woman forget her sucking child? Yea, she may forget,
but I will not forget thee. I've graven thee. Upon the palms
of my hands thy walls are ever before me. And so he counters
what his people are saying. The Lord comes to the two on
the way to Emmaus as well and counters them when they are so
dejected and when they are so low and opens up the scriptures
to them as to what really had happened at that time. So may we remember this, the
Lord does hearken to what we are saying one to another. He
knows what we are thinking and he brings the word to address
to that point and to assure us that very often those things
that we are thinking are not right. The Lord is viewing it
in a different way. We know, of course, Sometimes
it is the other way around. We are saying that we are a godly
people, an upright people, a people that the Lord is with and the
Lord has his word and saying I'm not with you and you are
ungodly and he makes us to know our sins and our iniquities. All these people were already
under the chasing hand of God, but God is for his own great
namesake. And that was very evident in
the previous chapters, Ezekiel 36, that the Lord would do it. In verse 32, we read, not for
your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, being known unto you. He says that he does it for his
own great namesake. And so the Lord says to the prophet,
that He is to say to them that He will open their graves, He
will bring them up out of their graves. And the end result again
will be that they will know that He is the Lord. The end result
is always to be to the honour and glory of God. We read in Ephesians, the work
the Lord would do, not of works, lest any man should boast. It
is to be the Lord's work. Then shall ye know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. The Lord
has the method of telling what he will do, then he does that
which he has said he will do. All the prophecies, they pointed
to Christ and to the assurance that he would come, the promises
of God. And he did come according to
what the Lord had said and what the Lord had promised. And we
are to notice this method of the Lord in many, many ways.
He tells first what he will do and then he does it. And then
we look back and we realize that what has been foretold has been
brought to pass. And from this we are able to
see clearly the Lord's hand. his work. So I want to look at
three points this morning. Firstly, the dry bones, and this
is bringing it to the state of a sinner, it's bringing it to
our own condition, and the whole of these points are pointing
to it as applying to us, going away from literal Israel to spiritual
Israel, to the Church of God at this present time. So dry
bones, the state of a dead sinner, and we consider that in verse
2. And then the Lord's intention
in salvation, which he reveals in verses 5 and 6. And then thirdly,
the means that are used. And the Lord sets in this parable,
in this vision, the means of the word of the Lord and prophesying
the word of the Lord. Firstly, the dry bones, the state
of a dead sinner. In verse 2 we read, that he caused
me to pass by them round about and behold there were very many
in the open valley and though they were very dry. The Prophet
was caused to dwell upon the condition of these bones right
at the very beginning. It wasn't to imagine that they
weren't quite as bad as what has been made out, and remember
later on the people are saying that our bones are dried, our
hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts. In the vision,
Ezekiel has shown that this actually is the case. Real deliverance
from the Lord is not imagining the case is not as bad as it
is. It is a reminder here, we are
to look upon it very, very carefully, to take note of what the condition
is and to realise really how dead, how hopeless the situation
is. And so he was caused to pass
by them, he was caused to see how many there were, he was caused
to see that they were very dry. what a state and condition man
is by nature. Man by nature is far off from
God. The sentence on our first parents
was that in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die. Spiritual death was immediate,
literal death was to follow later on. sin entered into the world
and death by sin. We must be very emphatic that
as impossible as this case is here, so it is impossible on
man's own terms and own way to make himself alive. I can't think
really of a more vivid description of the state and condition of
a man that is born in sin and shapen in iniquity, dead in trespasses
and sins. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? And there is
in ourselves no hope whatsoever and no ability to change that
state or that condition at all. And it's very needful for us
to realize that state of a man by nature. But what is true in
the beginning is true also later on. Going back to the vision
here of Ezekiel and concerning Israel of old, it was God that
had formed them into a nation. He had given, miraculously, Abraham,
who was as good as dead, we are told in Hebrews, and Sarah, whose
womb was dry, given a son. And from that son then in due
time sprang the children of Israel. God had done that. God had made
them into a nation. He had then brought them out
of Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land. God had done
that through a miracle through the 40 years in the wilderness
and through the bringing out of Egypt with the Passover. So we will remember the miracle
and the wonder that God performed in that and equate that to the
new birth and quickening into life the people of God. But at
this time, People, God's same people, are in captivity because
of their sin. The Lord is chasing them and
correcting them. And from that position, they
as much need the same power, the same renewing, as at the
beginning. King David was a man after God's
own heart, a godly man, one that feared God, and that could never
be taken. away from him. But in the matter
of Bathsheba and Uriah, he sinned, he brought the chasing of the
Lord upon him, but mercy through Nathan convincing him of his
sin. And really David had to view
himself as he really was. And we have in Psalm 51, the
beautiful utterances of David in crying, restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation. He confesses his sin, his iniquity
against thee, the only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. And he confesses this before
the Lord. And all of his prayer there suggests
to us that he needed the Lord to revive him again. He needed
the Lord to restore him again. In Hebrews 12 we read that the
Lord chastens every son whom he receiveth, and that no chastening
for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous, yet nevertheless
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them
that are exercised thereby. The time of chastening is of
the Lord. The coming of the chastening
is of the Lord. With the children of Israel here
it was said 70 years should be accomplished in Babylon and then
that would come to an end. And that was God's doing, bringing
them out, establishing them again in their own land. And so the
condition is to be noticed right at the beginning. And dear friends,
may we not shy away from our true condition as shown to us
and as we feel it. What Ezekiel saw here by the
vision was really exactly what the children of Israel were saying. And this was to be a comfort. They could not say, well, Ezekiel,
You do not know the true state of things. You are going to give
us hope and you are going to give us the Lord's words of restoring,
but you do not know how scattered we are, how dry we are, how dead
we are, how hopeless is our case. And if you and I come into the
house of God and we look for the blessing of the Lord, we
need to know first that the Lord does really know our state and
case, that the remedy is suitable for such as we, that we are not
outside of the hope of the provision of the Gospel and of the provision
of the Word of the Lord. To those who deny this state
and condition, really that would be offensive to be told this,
if with Israel of old there were those that didn't feel they were
in this condition. They would say to Ezekiel that
this is offensive, this is wrong, this is not what we want to hear. Amen today. One of our hymns
says, nor are men willing to have the truth told. The sight
is too killing for pride to behold. When the word describes their
wickedness, their sin, their evil heart, they don't want to
hear it. But if we already feel that, if we already know what
we are, the Lord has made us wise and opened our eyes to see
our state and condition, then that in itself will lay a foundation
for a blessing. Because the Lord comes where
we are. He finds us in our lost and ruined
state. of the Gospel, that I pass by
thee when thou wast in thy blood, and when thou wast in thy blood,
I bid thee live. And so the true state and condition
is considered here. And may we be helped to consider
our own state and condition, to consider our own backslidings,
our distance from the Lord, our deadness, our hardness of heart,
our lack of life, our lack of semblance to the people of God. And to consider it in the line
of what is set forth here is a foundation or a condition in
which there is hope, in which there is a message from the Lord
that shall change the state that we are in at this present time. And may there be those of us
that truly would say amen, that this is a good word of expectation
to change our captivity, to revive us, to put life in us, to do
for us that we cannot do for ourselves, that this is a word
that gives this expectation. So I want to look then secondly
at the Lord's intention in salvation. Now we notice in verses 5 and
6 what is said about this. We read here of the Lord's intention,
Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause
breath to enter into you, and ye shall live, and I will lay
sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover
you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live, and
ye shall know that I am the Lord. And so the Lord's intention is
set forth right at the beginning, before the prophet prophesies,
before he speaks, what the Lord has to do is already set forth. And we know this in the gospel,
the Lord has ordained this for his people, that he has sent
forth his beloved son. And our Lord clearly said that
I am come, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And that I know the thoughts
that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to
give you an expected end. That as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth shall not die, but shall have eternal
life. And the Lord's intention, especially
where He makes known a sinnership, where he shows to a person their
state and their condition in the day of grace. This is in
the day of grace. This is not of the judgment.
This is not beyond this world. This is in this world, where
he makes known the true state and condition. The Lord's intention
is to save and to deliver and save from that condition. When
God sent Jonah to Nineveh, He testified that they had sinned
and that the city was to be destroyed, but they gave them time. The
Lord gave him time. And in that time, the Lord gave
them repentance as well. And it is in the day of grace,
as God makes known man's sin, that he makes known his intention,
even in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thou shalt call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And he has a people, and they
are sinners, and he will save them from their sins. Not just
save them to heaven, but save them from the power and dominion
of sin here below. And the Lord's intention is when
he sends a people, and really Jonah knew this, this is why
Jonah ran away, that if God would send a man, send his prophet
to a people, he was sending him for a purpose, to give them repentance. And while Israel was still far
from the Lord, the Lord was sending him to a wicked and a fierce
nation, and the thought that God would give them repentance,
Jonah ran away. And it's good for us to remember
this. With the case of Nebuchadnezzar,
when he had a dream, couldn't remember what the dream was,
but he knew he had one, he said something that was very true
to his magicians, to those that were scheming, really, to give
him an answer, which was just imagined answer. He said, you
show me the dream, and I will know that you can tell me the
answer or the interpretation thereof. And if you can show
me the God that will show a man his sin and his true condition,
then we will see the same God that will deliver and save from
that condition. If you had a doctor and you say,
well, this is a very good doctor, and the doctor would say, well,
I can heal you of anything, But that doctor could not diagnose
the problem, and he couldn't tell you what was wrong. How
could he then heal you? But God is able, and God does
with his people, tell them what is wrong first, and then give
his intention. The apostle Paul, he says that
I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. And that commandment, which was
ordained unto life, I found to be unto death. It slew his pharisaical
hoax and helps himself and brought him as a guilty sinner. Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do? And so the Lord's intention all
the time was the apostle not to crush him, not to destroy
him, but to save him and to deliver him. The Lord's intention with
the children of Israel here under his chastening hand, was not
to destroy them, not to extinguish their light in Babylon, but to
bring them out and eventually to bring our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ from that nation, and that there should be salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we be encouraged in the intentions
of the Lord. The very prophecy that is given
here is encouragement. Never despise the tokens for
good. Never despise those things the
Lord does in providence and in grace that give that encouragement
that the Lord's intentions are out of love. The end of Psalm
107, we read that whoso is wise and will observe these things
even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. In the preaching of the Gospel,
in these Gospel days, the Lord's intention is that the nations
of the earth should hear the word of the Lord and that those
that hear should live as many as were ordained unto eternal
life belief we read following the preaching of the apostles
in the early church, and that will always be the case. Some
believe the word spoken, some believe not. But those that the
Lord ordained to save will hear and will live. And really one
of the first evidences of a hearing ear is to really fall under the
word as a sinner. And when we fall under the word
as a sinner, We know the Lord has the purpose of healing and
the purpose of restoring. And so this purpose is set forth
before us here. But then we have thirdly, the
means used, the actual bring this about, bring about the purpose
of the Lord. As the Lord said to his servants,
go into all the world preached the gospel to every creature,
he that believeth in his baptise shall be saved, he that believeth
not shall be damned. So there was then a performance
of it. They tarried at Jerusalem, they
waited for the Holy Spirit, and then they went forth and preached,
the Lord working with them, confirming the word with signs following.
And so in the third place, the means that are used is prophesying
or preaching, and in very clear, it is speaking the word of the
Lord. In verse 4, O ye dry bones, hear
the word of the Lord. What a message this is to us
who preach the gospel. We're not to look upon people
and say, well, they are beyond saving. They're so dead, they're
so dry. They're so worldly, they're so
carnal, they're so unlikely to be saved, then I won't preach
to them, or I won't speak the word to them. This is a passage
that completely undoes that thought. The Lord doesn't stand at the
grave of Lazarus and say, well, Lazarus is dead, it's no use
me saying, Lazarus, come forth, because he won't hear, he's dead.
But He does speak the Word, and Lazarus does come forth. And
we have to remember this, that the most dead appearing sinners,
those that have no apparent life whatsoever, are to have the Gospel
preached to them, are to have the Word of the Lord brought
to them. And it is not for the preacher
to reason, But he is to say, as in our text, when asked, can
these bones live, he's not to decide whether they can or not.
And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. And how that is so is
all. May we think of those in our
churches, those in our neighborhood, those in our family, those of
our loved ones. And how many, perhaps, have we
written out and said there's is a hopeless case? Or what about
our own case? Have we ruled ourselves out as
a hopeless case? What about our families, our
wives, our husbands, our children, our grandchildren? How do we
look upon them and how do we view how they would respond to
the word, to the gospel? Or do we not speak it to them
because we think, well, They are so far off, they're so hardened,
they're so dead, it is impossible. They'll never, ever be saved. This is an encouragement that
is otherwise. What the Lord uses to quicken
souls is the word of the Lord, i.e. dry bones hear the word
of the Lord. We read in another place, give
a portion to seven and also to eight, And knowest not what shall
prosper, this or that." I always like to, if sending a card, a
birthday card, or whatever it is, just to put a line of scripture,
just to put something of the word of the Lord, because we
do not know what word will be used. If there is no word of
the Lord, it can't be used. If we have a plot of ground and
we want to grow something in it, If we don't put any seed
in it, we cannot expect anything will come out of it. And if we
put a seed of wheat in it, we're going to expect wheat will come,
and not something else. And so when we put the Word of
the Lord before men, then we have that expectation, as it
is here, that there shall be an effect in the Lord's time,
and in the Lord's way, and in His sovereignty. Well, the effect. There's a two-fold effect here. And it's in a bit different order
than what it was said that it would happen. But what happens
first was that there was a coming together, 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. And I
want to put before you here a most solemn thought really, and it
is for us in our churches and for those that are brought up
under the sound of the truth. We can be an almost Christian. We can be like Agrippa, almost
thou persuadest me to become a Christian. You can have those
that appear to have life, appear to be God's children. Outwardly,
they look the same. They're not like the ungodly
world. They're not like the world that
lies in sin and wickedness. They're not like those that reject
the word of the Lord. They actually live lives consistent
with the word of God. They dress like the people, they
act like the people of God, they go where the people of God go,
and they have every outward looks as if they are a people. And this is what is pictured
here, that here is a people, and they are all there, but there
was no breath in them. And he says, then said he unto
me, prophesy unto the wind. There's two things here. One,
that we should never rest in just a form and not the power,
rest in an outward appearance without the life. And in speaking
the word, we should never think, well, because there's the outward
appearance and no evident life, then there's no hope for these
as well. And here there's saying, well,
there's observing, this is the condition. I remember years ago,
reading of the account, Mr. Raven, and he was right from
a child, and his pastor was Mr. Hazelrath, Smallfields and Redhill. And right from a child, he says,
I can never remember a time that I did not love the Lord, his
people, and his ways. But he knew there was something
missing, and his pastor did as well. And he caused him many
cries to the throne of grace. There's no substitute for the
new birth. There's no substitute for spiritual
life. He's not born of the flesh or
the will of man. We don't grow up inheriting eternal
life. And so the time came that God
did give him life, did give him the spirit. And that work was
done. And this is highlighted here.
It is through the same means. It is through the preaching.
It is through the word of the Lord. And then there came a breathing
people. We may ask ourselves, are we
a living, breathing people of God? Does Christ dwell in us? Do we breathe the life of prayer
daily and hourly? He said of the wicked that God
is not in all their thoughts. Is God in all our thoughts? Or is He far from us? Here is
a people that loves the Lord, that loves His people, that loves
His house, that loves His ways, that are a people that they're
very breath and they're very life. And to those around about
them can see that this is a people of the Lord. They're not just
in name, not just outward appearance, but their whole spirit and their
whole life is the life of the Lord in them. Paul says of the
Lord that the life that I now live, I live by the faith of
the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He says
that For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. And all his utterances are that
Christ means so much to him. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall we appear with him. We may ask ourselves
this morning, how much is Christ in us? How much do we breathe
his word, eat his word, live his word? How much of the Spirit
of the Lord is with us? Are we living? Or do we have
a name to live and yet be dead, which was one of the charges
against the churches in the Revelation? A name to live and yet be dead. And yet the means of changing
this, the means of bringing it about, is that same means of
prophesying, of speaking the Word of the Lord. take courage
then for ourselves and for those that we speak to that we may
not be just partially but completely a Christian and truly have the
life of God in us. We read here that they lived
and they stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army. And we think of that multitude
that shall one day be in heaven, that living multitude The Lord
says, because I live, ye shall live also. I am come that they
might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. May the Lord then bless us with
this work in our own hearts. May we be living people. May
we be encouraged to speak unto others and pray that this work
might be done in the hearts of those that appear now so dead,
so dry. so scattered. May the Lord add
his blessing. Amen.