Alright brethren, let's turn
to Ezekiel 37. It's a little cool out there
this morning. It's a good day to get locked
out. Let's get started a little late. Now our text will be Ezekiel
37 verses 1 through 14. It's the familiar passage of
the valley of dry bones. Let's read verses 1 through 3
together. 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. And behold, there were
very many in the open valley, And lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man,
can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest." Now, in the immediate context, he's speaking of the
resurrection of the whole house of Israel out of Babylonian captivity. There was a man named Cyrus who
God sent from another country. He wasn't from their land, he
was from another land. He came in, he was a king, and
he redeemed them from Babylonian captivity. Cyrus himself was
a picture of Christ. In immediate context, that's
what it speaks of. And then prophetically, it speaks
about the resurrection of the whole house of God's elect Israel. You know, when Christ came the
first time, the preeminence was given to Israel. He came to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel. That's who He came to first.
And He resurrected, as it were. He called out His disciples.
And He began calling out many in Israel. And then on the day of Pentecost,
He called out a great host out of Israel. And then He called
many more right after that. And then He turned to the Gentiles
and started calling His elect Israel from among the Gentiles.
And Christ will not stop until He's called all His whole house,
all the elect of God to Him. And then when He does that, He's
calling us to our land. He's calling us to heavenly Jerusalem,
to the Mount Zion, Heaven's Mount Zion, to the Church of God, the
Kingdom of God. And He won't stop until He's
called them all. But what we're going to focus on today is my
favorite application of this text. And it's speaking to what
God does through the preaching of the Gospel to each individual
elect child. How that God comes and gives
life and faith in Christ. A very beautiful Very, very beautiful
picture. Now several times recently when
I'm preaching, this verse has come to my mind. In the middle
of the message while I'm sitting there preaching, this keeps coming
to my mind. And the reason it does is this.
I'll preach and I'll tell you what the scriptures say. Men
by nature, Unless God's given them life. Men by nature are
dead in trespasses and sins. Spiritually dead. Spiritually
cut off from God so that you can't hear God. You can hear
me speak and you can hear what I'm saying right here, but you
can't enter into it and you cannot believe God unless God gives
you the ability to do it. And you hear me preach that.
Men are dead. Men have no ability. Men can't hear. Men don't understand. Sinners can't bring themselves
to God. You hear me say that. And then you'll hear me say,
hear this word. You'll hear me say, believe on
the Lord. You'll hear me say, repent. You'll hear me say, come
to Christ. And when I'm doing that, this
thought comes to my mind. The lost people who hear me preach
have got to be thinking, you just told me I'm dead. You just
told me I have no ability. You just told me I can't do nothing.
And then you tell me to hear? Then you tell me to come to Christ?
Then you tell me to believe on Christ? Why do you tell me to
do what you just told me I can't do? Well, that's our subject today.
Why tell dead sinners to hear? Why tell dead sinners to hear? Well, the reason we preach and
the reason we call dead sinners to hear the Word of the Lord
is because God commands it. And God promises that as we preach
His works, as we say, hear, hear the word of the Lord, hear what
God will do, and we tell you what God will do. God promises
through that message that He will come and He will speak life
and He will raise up His child and give them faith to believe
on Christ. That's why we preach to dead sinners and say, hear.
Now, I want to show you that in our text. First of all, what
we see here is it is God who sends His preacher to His people. You see, God's in control of
everything that's taking place concerning His gospel and this
whole world. God sends His preacher to His
people. Look at 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 dry bones." Now, when you hear the truth that God saves
His people through the preaching of the Gospel, some people often
will have questions like this. Well, if God saves through the
preaching of the Gospel, that's how God said He'd save. It pleased
God to save through the foolishness of preaching. Faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God and a preacher can't preach
unless he's sent of God. And you hear this message and
you think, okay, well what if somebody is separated in a remote
area of the world and they have no way of getting to the gospel.
They have no way of hearing the gospel preached. What about them? Or you hear them say something
like, what if a sinner dies before he ever gets the opportunity
to hear the gospel? Here's the problem with that.
God is sovereign over heaven and earth. You know what sovereignty
means? It means God rules everything
from the least little thing to the greatest thing. The scripture
says a sparrow does not fall to the ground without God's consent. It says the hairs of your head
will not fall except God permit it. And then it says, those are
little things, then it says the king The king, the president
of the United States heart is in the hand of the Lord and he
turns it whether so ever he will. You see, God's in control of
the greatest things and the least things. If he was not, he wouldn't
be God. This is the very definition of
God. He's all-powerful. He's all-mighty. That's who God
is. That's who He is. And it's the
hand of the Lord that sends God's preacher to God's people. Ezekiel
said, the hand of the Lord was upon me and he carried me out
in the spirit of the Lord. You reckon Ezekiel would have
just decided one day, I'm going to go to this valley? He didn't
even know where the valley was. He didn't even know what valley
to go to. God put his hand on him and God carried him out and
God took him to this valley. And God sends His preacher exactly
where He'll have His preacher to be. Because He knows where
His people are. God does. You see, God's ruling
and controlling where His people are, and He's ruling and controlling
where His preachers are. And He's able to bring them together.
Look here at verse 1. He set me down in the midst of
the valley which was full of bones. Now brethren, just wonder
how many valleys there were in that land. I wonder how many
valleys there were over there in all that land surrounding
Israel. I wonder how many valleys there
are. And yet God took him and sent
him down in this particular valley. Put him right here in this particular
valley. You remember one time in Acts,
it tells us the apostle Paul wanted to go to Asia to preach
the gospel. I can just see, I can be in his shoes. He's thinking,
That's a very populated place. It's a place where they need
to hear and maybe I feel like the Lord's calling me to go to
Asia. And the Scripture says the Spirit of God forbid him
to preach the Gospel in Asia. You mean God will not let the
Gospel be preached in some places? That's what He did in Asia at
that point. He would not let Paul go to Asia
to preach. And then Paul said, well, we'll
go to Bithynia to preach. And the Scripture says the Holy
Spirit forbid him to go to Bithynia. But the Holy Spirit turned him
and sent him to Macedonia. To Macedonia. And he went to
Macedonia. And the Lord led him out to a
riverside. And there he finds a group of ladies praying by
the riverside. And there's Lydia, one of God's
elect sheep. Paul preaches the gospel to her
and God saved her. You see what I'm saying? Another
time, Paul was at Corinth. He was receiving lots of opposition
at Corinth. And he was wondering, should
he leave Corinth? There's all this idolatry and
all this idol worship, and he thought, maybe I should leave
Corinth. Acts 18.9 says, Then spake the Lord to Paul. And he
said, Be not afraid, but speak. Hold not thy peace. Preach my
gospel. And he said this, For I am with
you, and no man shall sit on thee to hurt thee. He said, There
is not a soul going to touch you, Paul. How could anybody
say that unless they had the power to make it happen? And
he said, and here's the reason I'm telling you to keep preaching
here, for I have much people in this city. There was this
man named Philip. A man named Philip. He takes
a trip one day. The Lord leads him out and he
gets to this crossroads and one road is the new highway that
goes down to Gaza, one's the old highway. Nobody's taking
that highway anymore. He, for some reason, takes the
old highway. And he goes out there in the
middle of nowhere, in the middle of the backside of the desert,
and gets out there, and God crossed His path with an Ethiopian eunuch
taking the same highway. And the scripture says, the Spirit
said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to this chariot. To this chariot. And he preached
the gospel to him and God saved him. You see, there's cases,
I've seen this, where you'll have a preacher, a young man
or maybe an older gentleman, but he'll be preaching at a place,
you know, under a pastor, helping out, preaching. and teach and
what have you. And that pastor, something happens
to him. He has to step down or the Lord moves him or something
like that. And you think, well, that's just the obvious choice
that that man right there that's been there, been ministering
to those people, that's the obvious choice to be the preacher for
those people. And the Lord will take that man
and move him clear across to another place in the country.
And take another preacher from some other part of the country
and bring him to those people. You see, it's God who gives his
preacher to his people. And he brings them right where
they need to be. Now secondly, let's look at this
second thing. Here's the second point. The
Lord not only sends his preacher where he'll have him to be, the
Lord makes his preacher know the power is not of us, but of
God. Before he ever sends his preacher
to preach, he's going to make you know the power is of God,
it's not of us. It's not of the preacher. Look
at verse 2. The Lord caused me to pass by these dry bones round
about. And behold, there was very many
in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. And He said unto
me, Son of man, can these bones live? God caused Ezekiel to go
out there and to walk around in a valley full of dry bones. He's causing him to become acquainted
with the death of these bones. And there he is, he's walking
around in that valley and it looks like a battle has taken
place. This looks like a battlefield. There's bones just strewn all
over that valley everywhere. They're separated from one another.
They're just scattered out everywhere in that valley. Something devastating
has happened here. A terrible battle has taken place. And these bones, he looks at
these bones and they're very, very dry. You've seen those old,
sometimes you come across out in the country, those old white
bleached dry bones. These bones have been dead a
long time. A long time. A long time ago,
in the garden, Satan entered and there was a battle. And mankind
lost. Because we were all in that one
man, Adam. We're all going to be born of
that one man Adam, right there. And God made him upright, God
made him righteous and put him in that garden, but when he sinned
against God, he disobeyed God and he killed the whole human
race. We come into this world dead,
dry bones, unable to give ourselves life, unwilling to give ourselves
life. We don't want to have anything
to do with the true and living God. We'll worship an idol in
a heartbeat. We'll worship some man-made God
that depends on us to do something, depends on us to pay for our
sins, depends on us to buy indulgences, and depends on us to do all these
works to appease Him. We'll worship that God because
we're in control of that God. He can't do anything but what
we let Him do. But the true and living God,
the God who says, You're just a dead bone. You can't do a thing. We won't worship that God. We're
dry, dry bones. And God makes His preacher to
know this is the case of every sinner born of Adam. And until
we know this, until we understand what took place in the garden,
we're not fit to preach the Gospel. I want you to look over to Romans
3. I want you to see God's Word, see what He says about His people. You're familiar with this, but
maybe today will be the first time somebody actually really
hears it. Look at Romans 3 and verse 10. It says here, as it is written,
as it's written, it's from Psalm 14, from Psalm 53, as it's written,
there's none righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way. They're all become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Look at Romans 7 and look at
verse 18. Now Paul here has been regenerated
and he knows this about himself now so he can speak honestly
about his old fleshly man. And he says, I know that in me,
that is in my flesh, in that part of me that is born of Adam
dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. Look at Romans
8 and look at verse 6. To be carnally minded, That is
to mind the things of the flesh, to mind earthly things, to mind
your will and your ability and how you think God is and how
you think God saves and all the worldly things that the natural
man minds. To be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. And here's why it's death. Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God. He doesn't say there the
carnal mind sometimes feels a little hatred towards God. He says all
that the carnal mind is is enmity against God. That's all the natural
man is. He hates God with every fiber
of his being. Why? Because God takes all the
glory away from man. God takes it all away and gives
it all to God. And natural man says, I will
not have that man reign over me. Look here now. He says, for
the natural man is not subject to the law of God. Not a dead
sinner in here. Not a dead sinner in the sound
of my voice that is in submission to the word of God. Not one.
Not one. Neither indeed can be. They can't
make themselves be in submission to it. Now that's what you are
and that's what I am as we come forth the first time from our
mother's womb. Conceived in sin, the scripture says. Now until
a preacher learns this about Adam's race, he can't preach.
He can't preach. There's an old saying, wrong
on the thaw, wrong on it all. And if a man doesn't know that
all sinners are dead in trespasses and sins, then he will preach,
putting the work into the hand of sinners, trying to make sinners
like him and trying to make sinners using some other means to try
to get them to Christ. He'll do it every time. Because
he doesn't realize he's preaching to people that are just totally
dead. You go out there in a cemetery
and you speak all you want to the dead people and see what
happens. Nothing. Nothing. Here's the spirit God
gives His true preacher. Verse 3. He said unto me, Son
of man, can these bones live? Now judging by the appearance,
I'd have to say no. Judging by my inability to give
them life, I'd have to say no, they can't live. But listen to
Ezekiel's answer. And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. Before Ezekiel was used of God
in this valley, he was made to lay down all his understanding,
all his so-called ability, everything that he thought he might be able
to use, he was made to lay that all down at the feet of God and
say, Lord, You know. You know. You know. And before
God will use His preacher, He's going to bring us to see that
we are totally insufficient of ourselves to think anything of
ourselves. Our sufficiency is of God, of
God, of God. We have this treasure, Scripture
says, and the gospel is a treasure. And we have this treasure in
an earthen vessel. That's all I am, just an earthen
vessel. Just like you would take water
and you take a pitcher, just an old clay pot, and you fill
that pitcher up with water and you use that pitcher to carry
the water to some thirsty man and pour the water out to that
thirsty man. The pot is nothing but a vessel. That's all it is.
It's a vessel to carry the water. That's what God's preacher is.
And we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Scripture says
that the power may be of God and not of us. You see, when
I'm preaching to you and telling you that sinners are dead by
nature, I'm not just telling you that you don't have any power.
I'm also telling you I don't have any power. I've got no power
to give you life. I've got no power to do anything
for you. None at all. I'm just a vessel set to preach
this word. But I'll tell you this, the greatest
peace a preacher will have, I'd hate to be in the shoes of those
fellows that are having to try to do all kind of public marketing
and all kinds of PR work to try to keep the people in the pews,
get them in the pews and keep them in the pews. I'd hate to
be in their shoes. I'd hate that. Here's the piece
I have of knowing. I don't have any ability. I don't have any way to give
life or keep sinners at the feet of Christ. But here's what my
piece is. Lord, thou knowest. He knows. That's peace. Oh boy, that's
peace. If you don't have that peace,
you get in the middle of a hornet's nest and things are going south
on you, I'm telling you, you'll start trying to try every kind
of vain means possible. But if you got that peace, you
just wait on God. Lord, you know. Alright, here's
the third thing. Now we see here now the twofold
charge that God gives to all His true servants. Here's the
two-fold charge. First of all, God charges us
to preach the Word of the Lord. Now hear me when I say that.
Hear it again. He charges his preacher to preach the Word of
the Lord. When I stand up to preach, You
don't hear me give a whole lot of lengthy introductions and
just say things that I'm wanting to say to you and what have you.
I don't do that. What I do is I want to start
out reading the Word of God to you. I want you to get your minds
centered and focused on God's Word from the very beginning.
I want us to know that what we're hearing is not man's Word, it's
God's Word. Now here's what He said. Look
here now, verse 4. And again, the Lord said unto me, prophesy,
that means preach. Preach unto these bones and say
unto them. He not only told him to preach,
he gave him the message. Say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. He said, preach to them and tell
them to do what they are utterly incapable of doing. That makes sense to us, to the
natural mind, does it? Can you picture the picture?
There's Ezekiel out in the middle of a valley full of dead, dry
bones, and he's to walk around those dead, dry bones and say,
O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. That just makes
you smile to think of that picture, don't it? That's what I'm doing
right here. Exactly what I'm doing right
here. Think how foolish that appears. These bones are dead.
They don't have life. This is why I'm preaching this
to you now, several times lately. Like I said, I've been preaching,
and I tell you the carnal mind is enmity against God, it's not
subject to the law of God, it can't be. And then I'll say,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hear this wonderful message of God's gospel. And I'll look out
and I'll see a blank stare looking back at me, as if to say, Why
in the world are you telling me to do what I can't do? You
just told me I can't do this, and now you're telling me to
do it. Well, here's the answer. Here's why. It's because the
Lord said, preach to these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. That's why. Now notice here,
Ezekiel's the mouthpiece, but the word is the Lord's. And the
one speaking is the Lord's. Now here's the message, he says,
this is the message I preach to you every time I stand here,
verse 5, Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones. Thus saith
the Lord God unto these bones. He said, hear the word of the
Lord, hear what God says, and he says, Thus saith the Lord
God unto these bones. And that's what I preach to you.
I preach to you what God says to sinners like you and me. Thus
saith the word of God to dry bones like you and me. Now here's
what God said. Every time I stand here, not
only do I preach thus saith the Lord, I'm preaching the glorious
doctrine of free will. Every time I stand here. The
glorious doctrine of free will. Look at it with me. Verse 5.
Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I will. I will. Now there's the free will right
there. The only one that has a free will is God. He's the only one. Listen to
it. Behold, I will cause breath to
enter into you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon
you, and I will bring up flesh upon you, and I will cover you
with skin, and I will put breath in you, and you shall live, and
you shall know that I am the Lord. You see, we don't have
a free will. We're dead. How much free will
does a dead man have? Huh? How much free will do them
dry bones have? The free will is God. And we
know that because we know it's not of us. We know it's God's
will because He says, I will cause breath to enter into you
and then you shall live. You see that? It's got to be
God's will because we're just dead. It's just dead. But when God performs this upon
you, you know what's going to happen? Some sitting here right
now hearing me, a lost sinner. I guarantee it. It's always the
case wherever you are. I'm not picking on anybody. This
is how it is wherever you are. There's a lost sinner that always
hears you and they sit there hearing you and in their heart,
they're thinking. If they can scream out as loud
as they wanted to, here's what they're saying in their heart.
I don't believe a word you're saying. That's not true. That's not the God I worship.
No, sir. Well, when are you going to know
the true God? When He says here, when I cause
breath to enter you and I cause you to live, He says, you shall
know that I am the Lord. It's the only time you know it.
Believer, is that not so? When did you know it was God
working when God gave you life the first time? That's when you
knew. That's when you knew. And this gospel is the gospel
by which He gives life, and not only that, but He brings His
people together. He constrains His people. He
brings His people together. You picture the picture here.
He calls sinews to come up on these bones, just like we have
on our skeleton, which holds it all together. And it brought
these bones together. That's what he does. When he
starts convicting a sinner in his heart, he brings that sinner
together with his people. There's a great shaking. There's
a great trembling. He brings them together with
his people. But it's God doing it. It's God constraining them,
bringing them together. That's the first charge though.
Preach to my people. Now here's the second charge,
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, both the sinews
and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above,
but there was no breath in them. Then he said unto me, Prophesy
unto the wind. preach to the wind, prophesy,
O 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. Our Lord Jesus said then, What's
this wind? Our Lord said, 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 which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. You see, there's two different people in a believer.
There's flesh and there's spirit. And he says, the wind blows where
it will. This wind's the Holy Spirit.
The wind blows, God, the Holy Spirit goes where it will. You
can hear the sound, but you don't know where it's coming from or
where it's going. He's doing His will. He comes and He works
His will. Now notice, he says, pray to
the Spirit. Pray to the Spirit. Declare it
to the Spirit. Preach it to the Spirit. Say,
Thus saith the Lord God. Come. You see, we have the warrant
of God who has promised us He'll send the Holy Spirit. And He
says, Now you say to the Spirit, Thus saith the Lord God. This
is what my Lord promised me, O Holy Spirit, that you'll come. You'll come. And here's the other
thing. By commanding us to pray, he's
teaching his preacher to be always, constantly, totally dependent
upon God to work the Word. That's why Peter, when they had
that issue in Acts, he said, look out some men that take care
of this. The fellows here in the church take care of these
things, need to be taken care of. I will give myself. We, the preachers, will give
ourselves to the Word of God and to prayer. We'll give ourselves
to it because we're utterly dependent on God. Now lastly, here's the
result of God's grace. Here's the result. So I prophesied
as He commanded me. If that's the first result of
God's grace, His preachers are going to obey Him. I preached
like God told me to, and the breath came into them, and they
lived, and they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great
army. Remember when the Lord was at
Lazarus' tomb? Mary and Martha said, He's been
dead three days. He stinks by now. And the Lord
stood there, and He said, Lazarus, come forth. And here he comes. He came out of that tomb, covered
in his grave clothes, walked right out of that tomb. Brethren,
I'm here to tell you that's not just a fictional tale. That happened. That happened. The Lord did that.
And I'll tell you why I know the Lord did that. Because the
Lord did the same thing to this sinner. I was just as dead as
Lazarus was physically. I was that dead spiritually.
And God spoke and said, let there be life. And there was life.
That's what he does every time he raises a dead sinner. Now,
here's my last question for you. Why did God allow sin to enter
in and death by sin? If God's so sovereign, and He
is, why did He allow sin to enter in the garden and all mankind
to die in sin? Why did He do that in the first
place? It's because when He overcomes death by His power, when He shows
you how that Christ laid down His life at Calvary's tree in
the room instead of His people, and purged the sin of His people,
and redeemed His people, and conquered sin, death, and hell
for His people. And He shows you how He comes
into you, and He conquers death in you, and makes you to behold
Christ and to believe on Christ. When He does this work, He says,
then you're going to know I am the great I am. Look here at
verse 11. Let's just read it out. Then He said unto me, Son
of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. This is God's
elect people. That's who it is. The whole house
of God's chosen people, Jew or Gentile. That's who they are.
Behold, they say our bones are dried and our hope is lost and
we're cut off our parts. And when God first causes this
shaking in you, that's what you're going to say. You're going to
see your sin and you're going to say, our bones are dried and
our hope is love. We're cut off our part. Therefore
preach 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
I'd say again, that's a spiritual land, brethren. That's the heavenly
Jerusalem. That's Jerusalem which is above.
That's His heavenly Mount Zion. That's the spiritual application.
And He really did bring them back to Israel after He brought
them out of Babylon, but that's the spiritual application. Heavenly
Jerusalem. And He says, I lost my place. Verse 13, And you shall know
that I am the Lord. He said, 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 shall you know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord." So you see,
why do I preach to dead sinners and say here? It's because God
commands us to do these two things. Preach, thus saith the Lord. Preach all his works. Tell everybody
that he's gonna be the one that comes in. He's gonna be the one
that gives life. He's gonna be the one that shows
you that he's redeemed you and saved you and called you. It's
all his works. That's why when I stand here,
I don't preach your works. I don't preach man's works. I
preach God's works every time. And I know people that are lost
will say, I just get so tired of hearing him preach that. All
he ever does is preach God's works. He don't ever tell me
what to do. Well, I'm sent to tell you God's works. I'm sent
to tell you God's works. And I'm to pray. That's it. Two
things. Preach and pray. That's it. And
the Lord said, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, he has everlasting life, and
he shall not come into condemnation, but he's passed from death unto
life. And verily, verily, I say unto
you, the hour is coming. And it now is when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall
live. And He said, And then shall you
know. And I, the Lord, have spoken
it and performed it, saith the Lord. Amen. Let's stand together,
brethren, and we'll be dismissed. Lord, we thank You that the powers,
all of You, Thank You that You call Your preachers, give them
this charge, make it effectual in them, send them forth and
make their paths cross with Your people, just as You'd have it
done. We pray, Lord, now that You'd
cause the Word to go forth and actually make dead sinners live.
Lord, I've preached it like you said, and now I'm asking you. Send the Holy Spirit. Give dead
sinners life. Make your people, your people,
to hear and live. We're dependent entirely on you
to do it. We're thankful that it's that
way. Forgive us now, Lord, our sins. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.