of what we're going to have in
glory forever. And I'm so very grateful for
that. Thankful for the Lord meeting
with us this weekend. I want to read from Ezekiel chapter
37 for our scripture reading this morning. Ezekiel chapter
37. We'll read verse one. The hand of the Lord was upon
me. If God's hand is not upon us, all's in vain. If it is,
then we'll be blessed of him. 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. My prayer this morning is that
the Lord would set us down and open our ears and cause us to
hear and send his spirit to open our eyes and our hearts to his
word and cause us to find our rest in Christ. We'll read some
more from that passage if you want to mark it in your Bibles
in a moment. Let's stand right now. Tom's going to come and
lead us in number 37. 37, in your hardbacked hymnal, How Great
Thou Art. I was asking the men this morning
where they were planning on preaching from, and I remembered the first
time that Henry Mahan was here, and I was just beginning to learn
how to preach the gospel, and I made the mistake of asking,
Henry, what are you going to preach on this morning? And as kindly as he knew how,
he let me know that he was going to preach on the same thing he
preached on last time he preached. And the time before that, and
the time before that. So I've learned to ask these
men, where are you going to preach from? Because we know what they're
going to preach on. They preach on Christ. They preach
on the gospel. I'm so very thankful for that.
They've been faithful to do that this weekend. I'm grateful. I know the Lord's gonna bless
them again this morning. Let's still have your Bibles
open to Ezekiel chapter 37. This is a picture of preaching. Ezekiel 37, it's a picture of
preaching. The hand of the Lord has to be
upon the preacher and the hearer. And the spirit of the Lord has
to sit us down. In verse 2, he has to cause us. And he caused me to pass by them
round about, and behold, there was very many in the open valley,
and lo, they were very dry. I hope that's where the Lord
will cause each of us to be. And he said unto me, son of man,
can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. If they're gonna live, you're
the only one that can make them live. Again he said unto me,
prophesy unto these bones, preach the gospel to them. And say unto
them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to
enter into you. and you shall live, and I will
lay sin upon you, and 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 did it, I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded,
and as I prophesied there was a noise, behold a shaking, and
the bones came together, bone to his bone. Anytime there's
a preaching of the gospel, there's always a noise, isn't there?
Noise of rejoicing, sometimes a noise of anger, but always
a noise. The gospel never leaves men unaffected. 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. There was yet no life. Why? Because
the Spirit of God had not yet blessed the message to the heart.
And so God said to the prophet, prophesy unto the wind. Call
upon the Spirit of God. That which is of the flesh is
flesh, that which is of the Spirit is Spirit. The flesh prophet
is nothing. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, isn't it? Nicodemus,
lest you be born of the Spirit of God. You not see the kingdom
of God. prophesy unto the wind, prophesy,
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
upon their feet, an exceeding great army. 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. 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. 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 graves, and shall
put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land, then you shall know that I, the Lord,
have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. I mentioned to you all about
Terry having a stroke and she's still unresponsive and they're
waiting for the results of the neurologist. We want to pray
for her and for Rich who's here this morning and Mary Ann and
Jerry and the girls. Also, Ed Emrick went in the hospital
last night with chest pains. run the preliminary test and
are pretty sure that he hasn't had a heart attack. But while
he's there, they're going to run a full battery of tests.
And they're doing a stress test right now, right this minute,
I guess. I talked to Susan a few minutes
ago. They were taking him down for a stress test. And she said
they may do an angioplasty just to make sure that there's nothing
there. So that's where Ed and Susan
are right now. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we come
before you as dry bones without life. Lord, unless you're pleased
to send your Spirit, unless you're pleased to put flesh upon our
bones and cause us to live, We have no hope. We thank you that
you have blessed us with that grace and with that mercy this
weekend, and we ask now that you would be pleased to do it
again. We need to hear about Christ. We need to be brought
to the end of ourselves. We need to be caused to sit down
and to come and to set our affections on things above. We ask, Lord,
that you would bless your word to that end and exalt Christ
in our midst in this place this morning. We pray for Terry, and Lord,
we know not how to pray except to ask for your mercy. Pray, Lord, that you would be
gentle and kind and merciful to her and to her family and
to us. Give the doctors wisdom to know
what to do. We pray for Ed and we ask Lord
that she would place your hand upon him and she would give the
physicians that minister to him now all the knowledge they need
to properly diagnose and treat him and pray for your strength
to be upon him and we ask Lord that you've done in all of our
lives that you would use this time of trial to speak grace
and truth to his heart. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, let's stand together. We're going to sing the hymn
on the back of your bulletin. On His strength divine relying,
He is all in all to me. Love that fills my soul, And it's more than half to me
And it's very sad I pray that the Lord would cause
my heart to say that. Make me say that. Bend my knee. Cause me to bow. Cause my tongue to confess, Jesus
Christ is Lord. When the Spirit of God moves
and blesses my heart, it causes me to realize that's all that
thrills my soul. It really is. This world has
got a few wonderful things in it, but there's only one thing
that thrills my soul. Thank you for that. We just sang,
and when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to
die, when the Lord allows me to get a hold of that, I know
it and I say it, but whenever it hits me here, I scarce can
take it in. that on the cross, my burden
gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin, you know
what happens right after that? Then sings my soul. Turn with me to Luke 17. We're very thankful to have been
here. I'm very humbled that you would ask me. And we're
thankful that you would host us, Tricia. We love you all so
much. Our brothers and sisters here
in this congregation and all the congregations who have come,
just grateful, just grateful. I pray the Lord will help us
one more time this morning. In Isaiah 40, the Lord said,
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. That's His commandment. So by God's grace, that's what
I hope to do. I really do. Luke 17, look at
verse 32 with me. It says, Remember Lot's wife. That's an interesting verse,
isn't it? Remember Lot's wife. Verse 29 says, But the same day
that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the
day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day he which shall be
upon the housetop and his stuff in the house, Let him not come
down to take it away. Leave your stuff. And he that's
in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's
wife. Whosoever shall seek to save
his life shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his
life shall preserve it." Now let's go to our text. Our
text this morning is Genesis chapter 19. We know this story, how God sent
two angels to Sodom to deliver Lot and his family from destruction.
Verse 12 says, And the men said unto Lot, Hast
thou here any besides son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters,
and whatsoever thou hast in the city? Bring them out of this
place, for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them
is waxing great before the face of the Lord. And the Lord hath
sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out and spake unto
his son's-in-law, which married his daughters, and said, Up,
get you out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.
But he seemed as one that mocked unto his son's-in-law." Lot's
son-in-laws were technically a part of his family. But sad
to say, they were not a part of God's family. Because they
stayed in the city of destruction. God didn't bring them out. And
the next two verses, verses 15 and 16, tell us that Lot wasn't
any better than they were. Verse 15 says, And when the morning
arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy
wife and thy two daughters which are here, Lest thou be consumed
in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, Lot lingered. He wasn't running out of the
city for dear life like the angels told him to do. Neither was his wife. Verse 16
says, And while he lingered, The men laid hold upon his hand,
and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two
daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him. And they brought him
forth and set him without the sitting. The Lord being merciful
laid hold on him. Verse 17 says, And it came to
pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape
for thy life! Look not behind thee, neither
stay thou in all the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest
thou be consumed. And Lot said unto them, O not
so, my lord! Behold now, thy servant hath
found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy,
which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life, and I cannot
escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die.
Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it's a little
one. Oh, let me escape thither, is
it not a little one, and my soul shall live? And he said unto
him, see, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that
I will not overthrow this city for the which thou hast spoken.
Haste thee, escape thither, for I cannot do anything until thou
become thither. Therefore the name of the city
was called Zoar. How comforting is that? The angel said, Lot, I need you
to go. Because I cannot do anything
until you're safe. I'm under direct order from God
Almighty. And I'm sent to destroy this
city. I need you to go. Verse 23 says, The sun was risen
upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained
upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord
out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities
and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and
that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from
behind him and she became a pillar of salt." Now there's great warning
for us in this. Great warning. Luke 17 said,
when the Lord comes back, if you're on your housetop, don't
go down and get your stuff. Forget about all that stuff.
It's just stuff. He said, if you're out in the field, don't
return back home. We don't have here a continuing
city, do we? Let no thing be a greater treasure
to us than that pearl of great price. No thing. Where your treasure
is, that's where your heart will be. Lay not up treasures on this
earth. Isn't that what the Lord said over and over? Now our Lord God has given us
all things richly to enjoy. but let's hold them and enjoy
them with an open hand. An open hand, the Lord gives,
the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Our
Lord said, whosoever shall seek to save his life here in this
world, whosoever will try to gain the whole world is gonna
lose it in eternity. But whosoever shall
lose his life in this world, whosoever says, everything here
is empty. It really is empty. Everything
here is vanity. Everything here is nothing. And all that thrills my soul
is Jesus Christ. Christ is all. The Lord says
His life is going to be preserved. All of Lot's wife's earthly treasures
were in Sodom. Her home was there. We all love our homes. We all
have one place really that we call home. We love that place. Her money was there and her things
were there. And I'm sure it wasn't just vanity.
I'm sure those things had sentimental value. Her people were there. She had
son-in-laws still back in that city. You know she loved those
boys. This wasn't just about Sodom.
She loved him. When I think about this, if I
get honest with myself, I understand Lot's wife. I really do. She was one of the
ones whom God had mercy on. He told those angels, you lay
hold of her and you drag her out. And God had mercy on her and
saved her from destruction. But she was a weak vessel. Weak. Weak in the flesh. Who didn't have the ability in
her to obey the commandment of God. Didn't have it in her. It doesn't excuse it. But I understand
her. I really do. It does not excuse
it. Even after all the goodness and
mercy that God showed to her. Even after all that, verse 26
says, but his wife looked back from behind him. Looked back
in her heart. Looked back in her mind. Looked back in her will. In her
desire. And she turned and started running
back into Sodom. Verse 26 says, And she became
a pillar of salt. Now that scares me to death. Because I am a weak vessel. I know me a lot better than you
do. And I know what goes on in this heart, and what goes on
in this mind, and in this will, my desire. I'm a weak vessel, Hebrews 11
says, and truly if they had been mindful of that country from
whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have
returned. If God Almighty leaves me to
myself, I will run straight back into the city of destruction.
That's exactly what I'll do. If God leaves me to myself, I'm
going to do it just like Lot's wife. I'm no better than she
is. Now where's my comfort in all
that? We began by quoting, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith
your God. Where is my comfort in Genesis
19, 26? It has to be in there. The reason I know that is because
this one verse is its own paragraph. Do you have a backwards P by
26 and then a backwards P by 27? It's one paragraph. It must be
in there. Where's the gospel in verse 26? Where is the good news? It says,
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a
pillar of salt. You know what it doesn't say?
And God let her go. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say, and she became
a pillar of stone. That's what you'd think she'd
turn into. A dead, cold, hard, stony heart. She became a pillar
of stone. It doesn't say that. It says,
she became a pillar of salt. Now let's see what our God has
to say about salt. Turn with me to Leviticus chapter
2. Leviticus chapter 2 verse 13
says, And every oblation of thy meat
offering shalt thou season with salt. Neither shalt thou suffer
the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat
offering. With all thine offerings thou
shalt offer salt. Every one of them. First, our
Lord said, no sacrifice is going to be accepted without salt. None of them. Why? Go with me
to Numbers 18. Our Lord is speaking to Aaron
here. Numbers 18 verse 19 says, All the heave offerings of the
holy things which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord
have I given thee and thy sons and thy daughters with thee by
a statute forever. It is a covenant of salt. Forever. Before the Lord. Unto thee and to thy seed with
thee. Salt is the representative of God's covenant. It's the covenant of salt forever
before the Lord. Turn with me over to 2 Kings
chapter 2. 2 Kings 2 verse 19 says, And the
men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation
of this city is pleasant as my Lord seeth, but the water is
not. That means bad, evil. And the
ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruise
and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And
he went forth unto the spring of waters, and cast the salt
in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these
waters. There shall not be from thence
any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto
this day, according to the saying of Elisha, which he spake." The
Lord God says, salt is going to bring healing. It's going to bring life and
it's going to bring fruit. I've healed these waters. There's
going to be no more death and it's not going to be barren anymore.
Fruit, you're about to see fruit come out of this ground. Turn
with me to Ezekiel 43. Ezekiel 43 verse 23 says, When
thou hast made an end of cleansing it, thou shalt offer a young
bullock without blemish, and a ram out of the flock without
blemish. And thou shalt offer them before
the Lord, and the priest shall cast salt upon them, and they
shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the Lord. Seven
days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a sin offering,
They shall also prepare a young bullock and a ram out of the
flock without blemish. Seven days shall they purge the
altar and purify it, and they shall consecrate themselves."
Salt purges. Seven days. You're going to put
a bullock on there and you're going to throw salt on it. Salt purifies. Go to Ezekiel
47. Verse 9 says, And it shall come
to pass that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever
the river shall come, shall live. And there shall be a very great
multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither. For
they shall be healed, and everything shall live whither the river
cometh. And it shall come to pass that the fishers shall stand
upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglium. They shall be a place
to spread forth nets, their fish shall be according to their kinds
as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many, but the miry
places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed,
they shall be given to." They're going to be overtaken by, they're
going to be consumed by salt. The Lord Jesus Christ is this
salt. He is this salt. No sacrifice
will ever be accepted without Christ. Will not happen. Not just any blood. It's got
to be His blood. His blood. There is no covenant
without Christ. None whatsoever. There can be
no agreement between God and man without Jesus Christ. He's the Christ of the covenant. He brings healing in His wings. And you have He quickened. He's
the giver of life. It is God which worketh in us,
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. He brings forth
much fruit in His people. It's Christ that
brings forth fruit. He by Himself purged our sins. He purified us. It's His blood
which cleanseth us from all sin. He is the one who lifted me out
of the deep miry clay. I was overtaken by him. Thanks
be to God. He took me off the dunghill and
he set me among princes. Oh to grace, how great a debtor,
daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter
bind my Wondering heart to thee. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love,
I do. So here's my heart, would you
take and seal it? Seal it for thy courts above. Let me not get caught up in this
little stuff down here. Would you seal me for thy courts
above? Lot's wife was a sinner chosen
to be saved. Saved by God's divine mercy and
grace, who was running head first back into sin, back into death,
back into hell. But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us, cried, You're not going back. Covenant! You can't go back. Sacrifice! You can't be destroyed. She was running, but God cried, You cannot be destroyed. It is
Christ that died. Jesus Christ was destroyed for
you. You can't run back to death.
You can't. Life is in you. Give me a new cruise and put
salt in it. No matter how weak you are, no
matter how badly your flesh wants to, if God has had mercy on you,
and if he's laid his hand on you, if he chose you out of a
great city, and if he delivered you from
destruction, you are preserved. Preserved with salt. Preserved
with Christ. Isn't that amazing? That's good news. Sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise. Don't move. You're sealed. Our Lord said, they're in my
hand. I'm in my Father's hand. And nobody can pluck them out
of His hand. They can't even take themselves out of His hand.
It can't happen. Thanks be to God. Isn't that
amazing? Isn't that amazing? I pray that the Lord would preserve
us blameless till the day of His coming. Lord, keep me. Make me a pillar of salt in spite
of me. In spite of me. May the Lord
bless us and bless His Word. Thank you.