Let's turn in our Bibles to Ezekiel
chapter 37. This passage declares how it is that
God's people know that God is God. This passage declares how,
it's the Lord declaring how His people know Him. how we know
that it's Him that's speaking, how we know that it's Him that
has performed the works. This is how we'll know. This
is how we'll know. Our subject is God's irresistible
grace. Irresistible means God's elect
cannot resist the Spirit of God regenerating us, giving us faith,
teaching us the truth of the gospel, granting us repentance
from all our vain works, And He'll never stop this work. He
that hath done a good work in you will perform it to the day
of Jesus Christ. This work is irresistible. Irresistible. And grace means it's all free
by God's free favor. Not by our works, we didn't merit
this. Paul said, not by works of righteousness we have done,
but by His mercy. He sent the Spirit, regenerated
us, and washed us by His mercy, by His grace. It's God's irresistible
grace. Everybody who God elected to
save, Christ redeemed, and every one of them, God shall send the
gospel to us, and the Spirit of God shall give us life and
faith, and bring us to rest in Christ. That's the message of
God's irresistible grace. It's the message of God's works,
what God will do, and how God saves us in Christ alone. Now
these bones, we're gonna look here in verse one. The hand of
the Lord was upon me, and he carried me out in the spirit
of the Lord, and sent me down in the midst of the valley, which
was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about,
and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they
were very dry. I want you to look first of all
at the Lord Jesus. Ezekiel here is called the Son
of Man. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came down
and became the Son of Man, the God-Man. And it was God who sent
Him. God sent forth His Son. God's
hand was upon Him. God's Spirit was upon Him. He
said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. He has anointed Me
to preach glad tidings. Christ is the prophet. He's the
one God sent. He's the gospel He preached. His person and His works. And
He's the preacher who preaches that gospel. And these bones
here typify God's elect Israel. Jew and Gentile. This is how
we're made one in Christ. Look down at verse 11. Then He
said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel. Behold, they say our bones are dried and our hope
is lost. We're cut off our parts. This is God's elect Israel. That's
who the bones represent, Jew or Gentile. Now, first of all,
since it pleased God to save through the preaching of the
gospel, God always sends his preacher to his lost sheep. It
pleased God to save through the foolishness of preaching. So
God always sends his gospel to his lost sheep. Verse 1, 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 and caused me to pass by them round about.
Was God able to send forth his son? Was he able to send forth
the prophet that Moses spoke about? That's who Christ is.
He came down into this valley of dry bones. He came down where
we all are in this valley of dry bones and looked around Him
and everybody He saw was just a dead, dry, lifeless thing without
His grace. Well, God's able to send His
preacher. He's able to send His preacher
where He would have him to go. Ezekiel was sent by the Lord.
He said, the hand of the Lord was upon me. He carried me out
in the Spirit of the Lord. He said, the Lord sent me down
in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. The Lord caused
me to pass by them. Think of how many valleys there
was, but this is the valley that the Lord carried Ezekiel to.
Well, brethren, wherever God It's God who sends His preacher,
and wherever He puts His preacher, that's where He'll have him to
be. That's the people to whom He has sent His preacher. And
it's God who does that work. Romans 10.14 says, How shall
they call on Him of whom they've not believed? And how shall they
believe on Him of whom they have not heard? Christ is our message. It's Him we have to hear. And
how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? Only sent by God. He said, I
will give you pastors according to my heart which shall feed
you with knowledge and understanding. Now let me be clear. God does
not save except through the preacher He has sent. And God does not
save except through the gospel that gives our triune God all
the glory in Christ Jesus and puts sinners in the dust. He
saves through the truth of the gospel that exalts His Son and
declares His Son is the salvation of His people. There's an article
I put in the bulletin, but Brother David Pledger, he makes this
point, he said, Sometimes people will say, he said, I've heard
it said that people will say, well, I think you can be saved
without hearing the gospel or not. And he said, it's not a
matter of what God can do or can't do. It's a matter of what
God has revealed in his word that he will do. He said it pleased
him to save through the foolishness of preaching. So he's going to
send the preacher, he's going to give the message, and he's
going to do the saving. That's our God. Now, the Lord's
going to make His preacher know the dead condition of every elect
child to whom He sent. He said here in verse 2, He calls
me to pass by them round about, and behold, there were very many
in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. Now these bones
show our natural condition as we come into this world. We're
just dead, dry bones. and no life, in Adam all died,
separated from God. He said, your sins have separated
you from Me. That was our condition and we
couldn't do anything about that condition. Could these bones
do anything? These bones in this valley couldn't
do a thing. That's our condition. But listen,
God makes His preacher know that's our condition. Because He's going
to be a sinner preaching the good news to other sinners. He's
going to be a sinner saved by grace preaching to other sinners
who God will save by grace. And God's going to have us know
that. We don't have ability in ourselves to give spiritual life.
No one has ability to make anybody receive the gospel. Nobody has
ability to change a heart. Nobody has the ability and therefore
God will not allow his preacher to try to constrain and compel
men by wisdom of words and force of hand. He won't let it. We
have to be brought to say and to know that natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to
him. He has no will to receive them
and he cannot receive them. because they're spiritually discerned.
Our Lord said, we must be born again. We must be born from above.
We must be born of the water, that's the gospel of Christ.
We must be born of the Spirit of God. And He said this, just
like the wind blows where it will and you can't hear the sound
thereof or tell where it's coming or where it's going, so is everyone
that's born of the Spirit. You and me can't control the
wind. You can't resist the wind. And that's the same with the
Spirit of God. And God's preacher has to know this, and His people
are made to know this. And you know how we know this?
By experiencing what the Lord's teaching us right here in Ezekiel
37. And we experience this in the
new birth. God's going to make His preacher look to Christ alone.
Look at verse 3. He said unto me, Son of man,
can these bones live? Now listen to this answer. And
I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. That's the spirit Christ
had when He walked this earth. Think about that. Our Lord Jesus
is God. He created the world. He upholds all things. He can
do what He pleases. But when He took the form of
a servant, And the Lord poured out the Spirit on him without
measure as a man, as the God-man, he submitted to the Father. And
you remember when that bunch was pressing upon him and pressing
him and saying, tell us some works that we must do that we
can work the works of God. He said, this is the work of
God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. They said,
show us a sign. He said, I'm the son. I'm the
bread from heaven. And they murmured and complained
at him. What was his spirit? He said, all that the father
giveth me shall come to me. He was trusting the father to
draw him to him. All the father giveth me shall
come to me. What was he saying? Oh Lord, thou knowest. That was
his spirit. And that's the spirit he gives
his preacher. That's the spirit Ezekiel had.
We have to be brought to say not that we're sufficient of
ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiencies
of God. And that's so of God's preacher,
that's so of you who believe too. We don't have any sufficiency
in ourselves. No sufficiency in ourselves. That's the end of the story.
No sufficiency in ourselves, our sufficiencies of God only. God the Father purposed, He ordained,
and He predestinated everybody that He brings to have faith
in Christ. He did it from eternity. Christ
came forth, and He brought in everlasting righteousness for
His people, and He is the righteousness of His people. We don't have
sufficiency to make ourselves righteous. He's our righteousness.
And He sends the Spirit of God and He gives you a new holy heart
that's formed by Christ being formed in you. We don't have
sufficiency to make ourselves holy. He's our sufficiency in
all things. And so it is He that keeps us
walking by faith, looking to the Father, trusting Christ. And it's Him that's going to
reveal this in others and He's going to do it through the Word
that declares Him. Oh, Lord, Thou knowest. That's
where we're brought to. Whatever He brings to pass in
this world, He makes you lay down your will, what you'd rather
have happen. It's not going to happen like
you'd rather have it happen. It's going to happen like God
purposed it and like God works it. He's going to make you lay
down your works. He's going to make you lay down
your understanding at Christ's feet and say, Lord, You know. Trust You. That's faith. That's
faith. Secondly, God makes His preacher
preach the Word of God, declaring the will and works of God. Now
look at this, He makes us preach the Word of God, declaring the
will and works of God. He says in verse 4, Again He
said to me, Prophesy, that's preach. Preach upon these bones
and say to them, O ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. God
told Ezekiel to preach the word of the Lord. And he said, now
you preach and you tell these dry bones what they are. Oh,
you dry bones. When I come here, I'm telling
you what me and you are. We're just dry bones. We're just
sinners. That's all. That's all. Command
sinners to do what sinners cannot do. Hear the word of the Lord. Think of that. Go into these
dry bones and tell these dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.
They can't do that. There's no way they can do that.
Why tell them that? Faith comes by hearing. Hearing
by the Word of God. It's more than just hearing this
Word preached. That hearing of the Word of God
is when He actually speaks into the heart. Everybody can hear
the general call going forth, only God's people hear His Word
in the heart. That's the difference. Notice
God commands Ezekiel to declare the works that God alone will
work. Now look, He says, you go preach
the Word of the Lord, and as you preach the Word of the Lord,
here's what you preach. You preach what I'm going to
do. You preach my works. Look, verse
5, 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
sinners 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 am the Lord." You see, it's not a complicated
matter. We're just to preach what this
book says, preach God's Word. And we're to declare that all
the work is of the Lord. That's what we're to preach.
We're to preach God's will and God's work, not man's. Look,
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall
live. He said, Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones. Now
you go preach this word to these bones and tell the bones this
is what I will do. God said, I will cause breath
to enter into you, and you shall live. Is there any resisting
there? Is that irresistible? God said,
I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live.
There will be no resisting there. Going to resist God? Going to resist all-knowing,
all-powerful God? I will cause breath to enter
into you and you shall live. This is why scripture says, blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee. that we may dwell in thy court,
be planted in thy court, be immovable out of thy courts, because God
planted you. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. When he does
this work, he's gonna say, you're gonna know me. And you know what
that'll result in? You're gonna be satisfied. God's
satisfied with the son, and he makes his people be satisfied
with his son. This is a new creation. Look
here, I will lay sinews upon you and bring up flesh upon you
and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live.
You just picture these dry bones, when the Lord gets done with
them, they are a new creation. They are a man. Well, that's what He's doing
through the Spirit. He's creating a new man. We still have this
body of death and we're carrying around this rotting body of death,
but He creates a new man within. And it's entirely the creation
of our Lord. It's our Lord who said, I'll
send the Spirit. It's our Lord who said, I'll
be formed in you. It's our Lord who comes and enters
in and He creates a new man, a new spirit within His people.
And it's His righteousness He covers us with. Just like He
covered these bones with skin, He covers us with His righteousness. That's the covering we have. It's His righteousness. And what's
the sure certain result when He does this? You'll know that I'm the Lord,
He said. You see there, it's all, I will lay Sinu's upon you. I'm going to unite you together
like bones are united and held together by Sinu's. I'm going
to unite you together. I will bring up flesh upon you
and cover you. It's His righteousness. I'll
put breath in you. He's the life in us. And you
shall live. Again, no resistance. I'm going
to do this and it will be. And then you'll know, you shall
know that I'm the Lord. That's the only way we know.
That's the only way we know. Now that's important and we're
going to see that. Here's another thing though the
Lord tells His preacher to do. Preach His Word, preach what
He will do, preach His works. Here's something else He tells
us to do. Pray to Him to do what He said He would do. Ask him
to do what he said he would do. Look here in verse 7. So I prophesied
as I was commanded and as I prophesied 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 flesh came up upon them and the
skin covered them above but there was no breath in them. There
was a noise. The gospel starts going forth,
and sinners begin to hear, and there's a noise. It's not always
a good noise, but there's a noise. And there's a shaking. I've seen
people shake when they hear the gospel preached. Every which
way. Bones come together, bone to
his bone. People start talking to one another. Get under conviction. What's
a preacher supposed to do when that happens? You're going to
run after them and craft everything just right and beg and plead
and coerce and constrain and do all these things and get them
to make a profession? You've heard it said, the only
man who will try to convince a lost man that he's saved is
another lost man. No, you preach and you pray. You preach and you ask God to
do what God promised He would do. He said in verse 9, Then
said He unto me, Prophesy that, hear it me, pray, pray unto the
wind. Pray, son of man, say to the
wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds of breath,
And breathe upon these slain, that they may live. Now again,
we're going to have to look to Christ first. Christ is the intercessor. Our Lord Jesus Christ came and
He bought the right to have all the glory to be the head of His
church who fills all in all His people. And our Lord Jesus promised,
I will pray the Father. He's the only one who can speak
to the Father like this. And He prays the Father. And
He said, and He'll send the Spirit. and He'll be the comforter, and
He'll convince my people of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Who is He that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea, brother, that's risen again, who's even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
You know what that means? It means he's able to save all
his people, no matter how bad they are, no matter how sinful
they are, no matter how bad his saints fall, he's able to save
them. You know why? He's able to save
to the uttermost all that come to God by him, seeing he ever
liveth to make intercession for. He's our advocate with the Father.
Whatever he intercedes on our behalf to have, he'll have it. because the Father's pleased
with him and he's the head of all things. And it's his people
he's praying for. He said in John 17, 9, I pray
for them. We read there, He makes intercession
for us. We read in Hebrews 7, He ever
does make intercession for them. Who's the us? Who's the them? He said in John 17, I pray for
them. I pray not for the world, but
for them thou hast given me. That's who He's praying for.
Christ teaches His preacher to preach the gospel of His person
and works and then pray for the Lord to do the works He said
He would do. In Ezekiel 36 the Lord said all
these things He would do. Same things He's saying here.
He's illustrating it in Ezekiel 37. In Ezekiel 36 He said, I'm
going to do this for my people. I'm going to put my spirit in.
I'm a new spirit. I'm going to give them a new
will. I'm going to give them a new heart. He said all these things I will
do. And then He says in verse 37, Ezekiel 36, 37, Thus said
the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house
of Israel to do it for them. See, what He's going to do, what
He purposed to do, He shall do it. There's no doubt about it.
But He's going to make His preacher and His people ask Him to do
it. What's He doing by that? He's
keeping His preacher and His people knowing, we don't have
the sufficiency in ourselves. We depend on the Lord to do this. Depend on Him to do it for those
He's calling out, and we depend on Him to do it for us. But he succeeds in this. Ezekiel
said, verse 10, So I prayed, and as he commanded me, as he
commanded me, and a breath came into them, and they lived, and
stood upon their feet an exceeding great army. He said he'd do it.
He said in Ezekiel 36, 26, A new heart also will I give you, and
a new spirit will I put within you. He doesn't fail. He does
not fail. And remember now, faith comes
by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But it's far more
than simply reading these words or hearing this Word preached.
Christ said, it's the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profits
nothing. The words I speak to you. Their spirit and their life.
And when Christ speaks into the heart, You shall live. You shall live. That's why they picked out those
seven deacons. And you know, there's a lesson
in that. There was, what, 3,000 saved
on the day of Pentecost. And I think another 5,000 later. So there's 8,000 people in the
church. And the Lord provided seven men,
faithful, And then the Lord gave them a need to have some deacons.
You take a church that's got 20 people and the first thing
they'll do is they'll nominate half a dozen deacons. They had
over 8,000 people in the church before the Lord said, I'll provide
you some deacons to take care of this. Wherever there's a need,
God's going to provide the men to meet the need. That's what
he did there. Then they chose out some men
to help with that. That's all they were. They just
were to help pass out the gifts with us. But what did Peter say? Why did they have those deacons?
Peter said, we will give ourselves to the word and to prayer. Because that's what God tells
his preacher to do. You preach and you pray. You
preach and you pray. You preach and you pray. And
that's what we do. Now lastly, I began this by saying it's only
by being born of the spirit and power of our Lord, through the
preaching of the gospel, that we know the Lord. It's only through The preaching
of the gospel through the spirit and power of our Lord, that God's
preacher and his people know the Lord, and we know the Lord
alone performs it. It's the only way we know this. I must say this before I forget
it. I've had a lot of people I've met over the years that
told me they were saved in free will or many in works religion.
And then they came to the doctrines of grace, as they say it. I've
never yet met one that stayed under the preaching of the gospel.
I haven't. I've never met one that did.
Because of what the Lord says right here.
Until the Lord works this in a person through the preaching
of the gospel, they do not know and they do not submit to the
Lord and see the value of the preaching of the gospel of Christ.
When you sit here, it's this serious. Christ sent the word,
Christ is preaching. That's how serious it is. Well,
I'll just hear it next time. Just hear Christ next time, maybe
you will, maybe you won't. If He takes it away, you won't.
If He takes you away, you won't. But when He's made you to know,
you know, this is my life, I gotta have Him. And this is how it's
pleased Him to minister faith, and that's not a one-time thing,
that's constantly, continually, this is how He's pleased to minister
it, through the preaching of His gospel. Now look here at
verse 11. And he said to me, son of man,
these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say our bones
are dried, our hope is lost, we're cut off for our parts.
Therefore preach, say to 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've opened your
graves. O my people, you'll know when I 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 shall you
know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the
Lord." Pretty clear about how we know the Lord, isn't it? He's
pretty clear about how we know Him and what we know. We know
Him through this Word, through this Gospel, and we know He did
all the work. He did all the work. Till a sinner
has experienced this irresistible grace and power of God, through
the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, he doesn't know the
Lord. He may know some doctrine, he may see some things in the
letter, but he doesn't know the Lord. And he doesn't know that
the works are all of the Lord. Sooner or later, he's going to
manifest he don't believe that. The apostle declared, he said
that this was the only way he knew the Lord. And he said it's
the only way that he continued to preach the gospel and preach
Christ in Him crucified. The only way. I want you to see
this in 2 Corinthians 4. This will be our last text. 2
Corinthians 4. Now 2 Corinthians 3, this is where Paul had said, we don't
have any sufficiency in ourselves for this. And he spends 2 Corinthians
3 saying, if you know this, it's because God's written it on your
heart. You're the epistle, written not
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. That's what
he said. And he said, now that old covenant, And he at that
time was just dealing with the Old Covenant. Now we have all
the Scriptures. So you can say this about all
the Scriptures. What he said about the Old Covenant, he said
it had glory. He said here was its glory. It was a ministration
of death. You know all the Word of God
without the Spirit of God, without Him giving you faith in Christ,
every word in this book is a ministration of death. That's what Paul said
in 2 Corinthians 2. He said, when this gospel goes
forth, we're a saver of life unto life in some and death unto
death in others. And that's of God. But it had
that glory as a ministration of death. That's the law written
on tables of stone, he said, the Ten Commandments was given
to minister death. And he said, and if that glory
was so great, ministering condemnation, how much greater is the glory
of the Spirit, the glory of the Gospel that ministers Christ's
righteousness to His people? How much greater? But watch what
he says now. We're showing here that the only
way you can know this is by the Lord revealing it. He said in
verse 15, even to this day, 2 Corinthians 3.15, he said, even to this day
when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Now that's
true whether men are reading Old Covenant law or whether they're
reading the New Testament. If they hadn't been born of the
Spirit, it's like having a veil on the heart. They can't see
at all. They understand it in the letter,
and they're looking for things to do and not do. They think
that's life. Nevertheless, when that new heart
should be turned to the Lord, the veil will be taken away.
The veil should be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit.
He's the only one that does it. And where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there's liberty. He brings you out. It shows you
you've been made free by Christ. But we are with open face. Moses
had a veil on his face. Now the veil's gone. We can see
by faith. We behold as in a glass the glory
of the Lord. And we're changed into the same
image. He's saying here from the glory of that old covenant
that ministered death to us. to the glory of the new covenant
of grace. And he just said who that glory
is. The glory of the Lord. He's the
new covenant of grace. Everything's yes and amen in
Him. We're turned to His glory and we're changed into His image.
Now watch, as by the Spirit of the Lord. as by the Spirit of
the Lord. Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, look at this next word, as we've received mercy. How
did he just say we've received? As by the Spirit of the Lord.
So as by the Spirit of the Lord, we faint not. That's the only
way we don't faint. It's by the Spirit of the Lord.
But we've renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness, not handling the Word of God deceitfully. Men
will accuse you of doing that when you preach the gospel. You
cannot preach the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace without
being accused of being an antinomian. You cannot do it. Paul was. Everybody who preaches will be.
But we're not the one handling it deceitfully. Those making
that accusation are. Because they're not honest that
they're nothing but a sinner and can do nothing to save themselves.
Now watch. Watch. He said, but speaking
the truth, the manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our
gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. That's what I
just said. That's why men fuss and fight and wrangle over the
gospel. If it's hid to them, there's only one reason. The
Lord hadn't breathed into the dry bones yet. in whom the God
of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not,
lest, except, this is what has to happen, lest the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. Now what's this truth Paul said
we preach? We preach not ourselves, but
Jesus Christ the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
What did the Lord tell Ezekiel to do? Go preach my word. I set you down, my hands are
on you, my spirit's in you, I set you down, now preach my word
and tell them their dry bones and tell them I will do the work."
That's what he said. Paul said, So therefore, we don't
preach ourselves. It's not of ourselves, it's of
the Spirit of the Lord, and it's not about ourselves. We're not
preaching man's works. We're preaching Jesus Christ
the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. How'd
you come to have all this understanding, Paul? Why don't you faint? Why
don't you stop preaching this? How'd you start preaching it?
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what happened
in the valley of Drabon. That's what happened when the
Lord gave you understanding. So you know that He spoke it. He performed it in your heart.
And you know it's all of Him. And you know this, we have this
treasure in earthen vessels. vessels that have no sufficiency
in ourselves, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us." That's what God teaches everybody that's born again.
The powers of God, not of us. Power to do what? Anything and
everything. Especially trusting Christ alone
and resting in Him. Power is not of God, it's of
us. I pray He blesses us. Let's go to Him. Father, we thank
you for your word. Thank you for giving us the gospel.
And Lord, we pray now that you would do what you promised you'll
do. We pray you'll quicken the dry bones. We pray you'll breathe
life into us. We pray, Lord, you'll cover us
in Christ's righteousness. We pray, Lord, that you'd make
us not to faint. Make us know continually the
spirit of the Lord. All of this is by your work and
by your performing the work. Keep us looking only to Christ. Lord, let us have no other confidence. Let us have no other sufficiency.
Let us have no other salvation but Christ Jesus, our Savior.
Thank you for your grace and mercy, Lord. Forgive us our sins. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen.