Let us turn once more to the
Word of God in that portion of Scripture that we read, Ezekiel
37, and reading for our text the opening three verses. Ezekiel
37, and reading verses 1 to 3. The hand of the Lord was upon
me. and he 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 oh Lord God thou
knowest what we have here is a revelation and a response. It is that that is revealed,
that that God causes the prophets to see in the opening two verses. And then, as God puts that question
to him in verse 3, can these bones live? So we have the response
of the prophets. I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. So that's the theme that I want
to take up, as it were, this morning, a revelation and a response. But before we really come to
the text just to remind you again of the historical context, the
ministry of Ezekiel. It's a time of the Babylonian
captivity. He is taken there to minister
to those who had been transported and taken into exile in Babylon. Going back to the third chapter,
Verse 15 there in chapter 3, Then I came, he says to them,
of the captivity at Tel Abib, and dwelt by the river of Khebar.
And I sat where they sat and remained there astonished among
them seven days. And it came to pass at the end
of seven days that the word of the Lord came unto me. saying, son of man, I have made
thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the
word at my mouth and give them warning from me." How the Jews,
of course, had been destroyed, really, by the
might of the great Babylonian Empire and Nebuchadnezzar had
come and laid waste the lands, destroyed the city of Jerusalem,
razed the Temple of the Lord to the ground. They'd fallen
and their bodies were left as it were. And this is the image
that we have really here in Chapter 37. This vision that is given to the Prophet
the valley which is full of bones, representing the house of Israel. We read from the previous chapter
there, verse 16, in chapter 36, and the following verses, and
we have the explanation as to why God had visited this terrible
judgment upon them. It was because of the multitude
of their sins, and particularly their awful, idolatrous ways. And here they are now, they're
left languishing, a nation that has been destroyed.
And yet, strangely, God does minister to them some comfort
by His servant the Prophet, because The Prophet goes on here to speak
a word of encouragement, a word concerning restoration. Look
at the language that we have at verse 12 of this 37th chapter. God says to the Prophets, Prophets
I 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 ye 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 ye shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I, the
LORD, have spoken it and performed it, saith the LORD. So although
judgment has come, and it's a terrible judgment yet there, there is
going to be a restoring, it's not the end. God must preserve
His people Israel and He must preserve them of course until
the coming of the Promised One, until Messiah appears. And really we do see here that
there is very much of Gospel that is contained in the portion
that we read this morning. we certainly see it there back
in the end of chapter 36 verse 25 following God says then will
I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all
your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you
a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put
within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh
and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit
within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall
keep my judgments and do them. These are all promises that concern
that new covenant, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have it also here later
in this 37th chapter. Look at verse 24, David my servant
shall be king over them. And they all shall have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgment,
and observe my statutes, and do them. Who is this David, my
servant? David was long since dead. The
sepulcher of David was there in Jerusalem. This is David's
greatest son. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself who is being spoken of. And so there at the end, verse
26, Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall
be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will place them and
multiply them and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them
forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with
them, yea, I will be their God and they shall be my people."
Who is the tabernacle? It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is David's greatest son. There's so much of gospel. so
much a promise and the remarkable thing is of course in the midst
of all these promises we see that God would have his people
to pray how they are to plead with him how they are to be calling
upon him that he would accomplish all these works that he has declared
to them through his servant Ezekiel and there at the end of chapter
36 Thus saith the Lord God, I will
yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it
for them. I will increase them with men
like a flock, as the holy flock as the flock of Jerusalem in
her solemn feasts. So shall the way cities be filled
with flocks of men, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
What of these flocks? This is the flock of the Lord.
Oh, this is that little flock. that we were thinking of only
last Thursday evening. Fear not, little flock. It is
your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. As we come to a passage like
this, how are we to understand? How are we to interpret it? We
don't ignore the historical context. It was given in a certain situation. It had an application. to Israel
at that time, but the real fulfillment is to be seen in the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And what do we see here in these
verses that I've read as our text? The hand of the Lord was
upon me And He 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." There is a verse that we have in the
New Testament that really opens up these verses to us, and it's
that that we find in John 5, 25. The ministry of the Lord
Jesus. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is come, and now is when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. There is that spiritual application
there. we're to understand these verses
in the light of the New Testament and the great work that the Lord
Jesus Christ has accomplished to save those who are dead in
trespasses and in sins. Well, coming then to consider
this text this morning and I speak of a revelation and a response. Two points. First of all, what
the prophet saw. He's given a revelation. And
then, secondly, what the Prophet says is a response to what the
Lord has shown him, and a response to that question that the Lord
puts to him in verse 3. Son of man, can these bones live?
is the question. And I answered, O Lord God, Thou
knowest. But first of all, the revelation,
what the Prophet saw. Now, we remember how the Christianity,
of course, is very much a revealed religion. It's not a natural
religion. It's something that has been
revealed to us. God has given us His Word. We
have this book, the Bible, these articles that have come from
God Himself. How those prophets, those holy
men such as Ezekiel here in the Old Testament, spake as they
were carried along, as they were born in their writings by the
Spirit of God. The Bible is a revelation. But
when it comes to the Lord's dealings with us individually and personally,
we have to also experience a revelation. That was what Paul knew. As he
tells us here in the opening chapter of the epistles of the
Galatians, he pleased God, he says. He pleased God to reveal
His Son in Mary. When God's Word is brought out
to us, it has an effect. And we see here that what the
Prophet Ezekiel saw had a profound effect upon him. Look at the
language. The hand of the Lord, he says.
was upon me or when God puts his hand upon a man when God
begins to finger us in our consciences the hand of the Lord was upon
me and 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 or look at the
language that he uses he says and behold and then again he
says and lo it's really the same word that he is using at the
beginning and then at the end of that second verse and you
know the the force of that word it's only a little word lo allo
or behold and yet what does it indicate Here is something to
consider. Here is a scene to gaze upon. This is the effect you see. God
causes him to pass by this valley that is full of dry bones. And
it has an effect. And why does it have an effect?
Well, because God caused him to see. It was God who caused
him to see the vision. It was the hand of the Lord that
was upon him. And apart from God and God's
dealings here, he could know nothing. He would know nothing. And how true that is, friends,
when he comes to us and any understanding we might have of the Word of
God or any impression the Word of God might make upon us. We
often refer to those words of the Apostle, writing in 2 Corinthians
3, 5, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything
as of ourselves. Or we're not sufficient to think
about these things. A man can receive nothing except
it be given him from heaven is the testimony of the greatest
of all the prophets of the Old Testament, John the Baptist's
words. we can receive nothing except it's given us from heaven. And how God's word constantly
underlines to us that truth. It is God who must do it. And
here he says the hand of the Lord was upon me. And then he speaks of the Spirit
of the Lord. How we need that ministry of
the Spirit Isaiah says, Thou also hast wrought all our works
in us. Other lords beside Thee have
had dominion over us by Thee only. Can we make mention of
Thy Name? Here is something then that is
of God, it is God who causes the Prophet to see this revelation. He calls me to pass by them round
about. All when God speaks and that
voice of God comes to us as the voice of a king, there's power,
it's an effectual call. The Psalmist says, when thou
sayest seek in my face, My heart said, Thy face, Lord, shall I
see." But when God says it, and God applies that word, how indeed
that God would cause us to see these things, opening our blind
eyes. And now the language here is
so, so graphic, the authorized version, the beauty of the authorized
version, the literalness of the translation, it brings out something
of the force of the of the language that is being used here in the
original. He calls me, it says, to pass
by them round about. To pass near by them is the idea. Round and round. He's made, as
it were, to look so carefully and so closely at that situation
that the Lord has brought him into. Here is the valley. and
it's full of bones. And God is causing him to wander
through all this dreadful carnage, this terrible scene, and the
bones are very dry, they're long dead, they're well dead. All
is made to look at these things. And isn't this how the Lord has
to deal with us? We have to be confronted with
the awful sight of ourselves. We have to know ourselves, we
have to come to terms with what we are by nature. That is the
way of the Lord. Those whom He saves, well we
were considering this on the last Lord's Day evening, those
words seen in Psalm 90 and verse 3, they turn us man to destruction.
We see what we are, we are ruined by the fall that spiritual truth
of our total depravity. When Paul writes there to the
Ephesians, you know the language in that second chapter where
he speaks much of the grace of God. But how does the chapter
open? You are the quickened who were
dead. in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the print
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also ye." We all had our
conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, even as others. children of wrath, children of
disobedience. Paul reminds those Ephesians,
he reminds us, of what we are by nature, having the understanding
darkened, alienated from the life of God, he says, through
the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their
hearts. This is the spiritual truth that
the Lord teaches and this is what God is showing His servant,
the prophet. new life from him we must receive
before for sin we rightly grieve. Oh God shuts us up to what we
are as Haman confesses there in Psalm 88 I am shut up and
I cannot come forth. Man's condition God causes him
to see something he caused me to pass by them and behold, and
love. Why? His eyes are opened, open
to the truth concerning what the state of the children of
Israel was at that time. And yet, as I've said, they are
a typical people, of course, Israel in the Old Testament.
Ethnic Israel, a type of the true spiritual Israel. They're
not all Israel, they are of Israel. But these things are written
for our learning. They happened unto them for examples.
They're written for us, upon whom the ends of the world are
come. God gives him this revelation. God makes him to search. But God also made the Prophet
to feel something here. True religions, more than notion,
something must be known. and felt. How does he feel? Well, God's hand is upon him.
And God's hand is very heavy upon him. The hand of the Lord
was upon me, he says. Now going back again to that
passage that we were looking at in chapter 3. Remember how he came to them
of the captivity at Tal-Abi-Witl. But look at the context there,
the previous verse. So the Spirit lifted me up and
took me away and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit but
the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to them
of the captivity at Tal Abib, that dwelt by the river of Caibar,
and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among
them seven days." Look at the language again that is used here.
God makes the Prophet to be well acquainted with the captives. He is having to come to terms
with their case, with their situation. and he is astonished. He felt
their sad and their miserable condition. Oh, he has to learn
something. He has to learn something in
his feelings. He has to learn something of the bitter thing
that sin really is. It's not enough to say. He must
also feel these things. He's got to sympathize with these
people. These are the ones he's got to
minister God's words to. and so God's word must become
a reality in this man's own soul you see doctrine isn't something
that we simply learn in our head we have to also feel those truths
in our heart we don't just dismiss doctrine as that that is dry. We don't just dismiss doctrine
as letter religion. It's important. The sound mind
in the truth of God, how vital that is. But it's not enough
simply to be assenting to the truth with our understanding. We want more than that sort of
religion. Back in the In the 18th century there were those
Scottish Baptists who were much influenced by a man called Robert
Sanderman and another called John Glass and those men laid
such an emphasis upon the mind and ascending to the truth of
scripture and they saw faith as nothing more than an intellectual
ascent a notional thing in the head and you might say, or come
across the term Sandimanian, well that's a reference to that
sort of religion, which is just mental. Ascending to the truths
that are contained in the Bible, we need to understand the Word
of God, we need to pray that God would grant to us a sound
mind. but we want that words to penetrate into our very souls,
we want that word to take hold of our lives, we want to feel
it. It's so important, doctrine, but we we need to know the experience
of the doctrine and then we need to know what it is to be those
who are careful to practice those things that we're learning. How
we see it in a man like John Bunyan and his ministry. He tells
us how he preached. I preached, he said, what I did
fail! What I smartingly did fail. And this was the case also with
the prophet Ezekiel. Oh, how he felt these things. Even the awful truth of the sinner's
total depravity. how it must be learned experimentally,
how the hard hearts must be utterly broken up, how the depths of
sin within have to be discovered. Remember how this prophet in
a previous chapter says something about chambers of imagery. Strange chapter that we have
there in chapter 8 of this book. And there chapter 8 and verses
12 and 13 we have these words how the Lord constantly addresses
his prophet verse 12 then said he unto me son of man hast thou
seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark
every man in the chambers of his imagery for they say the
Lord seeth us not the Lord hath forsaken the earth He said, Also
unto me turn thee yet again, and they shall see greater abominations
that they do. All the chambers of imagery,
the heart of man, deceitful above all things, desperately wicked,
what they think they're doing in the dark that God doesn't
see, the secret sins, those evil thoughts, those unkind thoughts,
those wanton thoughts, all these things known unto the Lord God
Himself. I remember reading of an incident
in the life of Daubigny. Daubigny, the great historian
of the Protestant Reformation. He was Swiss, he was there in
Geneva in the early years of the 19th century and he sat at
the feet of Robert Haldane, the Haldane brothers. had quite a
ministry there in Geneva. There was a revival at that time
amongst the Genevan churches. And Daubigny heard the faithful
preaching of Robert Haldane. He was a Scott Haldane. But what
Daubigny says of his experience is that when he heard that preaching,
he says that Haldane showed him all his heart. That was his comment. The preaching of that man showed
young Daubigny all his heart. Well isn't that what the ministry
of God's Word is about really? To reveal to us what we are,
to show us what we are, the chambers of imagery. The heart that is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. You can know
it, I the Lord search the heart. I try the reins. Oh this is the
experience said of this man he has given this revelation from
God the hand of the Lord was upon me and he 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 God has something to
show this man 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, what he is made to see, he is made also to feel
something of these things. Here then is the setting as it
were, here is the revelation that is granted to the man. He speaks of what was shown him,
what he was caused to behold. And then in the second place, to see his response, what the
Prophet says. Having shown him this awful sight,
in verse 3, God says to him, Son of Man, can these bones live? And the response I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest. Two things here we see, something
of the prerogative of God, that's what he is acknowledging, the
prerogative of God, and secondly, the power of God. Now, he acknowledges
God in the very name, of course, that he is giving to him. I answered,
O Lord God, and it's the two names, Lord and God together. And the one, of course, is the
covenant name. And it's God here in capital
letters. That's indicative that it is
in fact that that we usually behold as Lord in capital letters. It's the great Jehovah. It's
the I Am that I Am. It's the God of the covenant.
The one who made a covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with
Jacob. and that God who revealed himself so wonderfully at the
burning bush when he was about to deliver the children of Israel
out of that bondage that was Egypt. You see the connection,
there's a connection here with the previous deliverance. Again,
Israel is in captivity, they are now in exile in Babylon in
the days of Moses, of course, they were there, they were servants
and slaves in bondage in Egypt and the Lord reveals himself
in Exodus chapter 3 to Moses who is going to under God's good
hand bring them out of captivity and it's the same God and He's
going to deliver the children of Israel again. He's going to
deliver them now after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. It's the God of the Covenant,
it's Jehovah, but it's also, it's the Lord. And the other
name that we have here is really the name Elohim, and it speaks
of the power of God. It speaks of that One who is
the Almighty One, who is able to do all things. He's the faithful
God, He's the God of the covenant, but He's that God also that is
omnipotent. This is the name then, I answered,
O Lord God, who is a man then mindful of God's power and of
God's faithfulness to his covenant promises and he acknowledges the sovereignty of God. Interesting
remarks there on the name that the Prophet gives to the Lord
God as he addresses him But what is the name that God gives to
the Prophet when he speaks to him? He said unto me, Son of
Man. And you'll observe if you read
through this book over time and time and time again, that's the
very way in which God addresses Ezekiel. Just turning over to
chapter 38, and there at verse 2, Son of Man. set thy face against Gog, the
land of Magog, and so forth. Repeatedly this is the name that
is given. Why is it that God addresses the man by such a name
as this? Well, it reminds the man of his
base origin, does it not? The Lord God formed man out of
the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and he became a living soul. But remember after Adam
sinned, Adam transgressed, Adam fell, disobeyed the commandment
of God back in Genesis chapter 3. And then that awful curse
that comes in the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread till
thou return to the earth. Out of it was thou taken. Thus
thou art, unto thus thou shalt return, son of man. Lord Jeremiah says to Israel
on one occasion, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Oh, what a contrast then between
these two forms of address. God says to Ezekiel, son of man,
and Ezekiel in faith, is able to respond, I answered Lord God. Oh, there's such a remarkable
contrast. And the question, the question
that God's putting here at the beginning of verse 3, such a
searching question. Son of man, can these bones live? Now what is the answer? Isn't
the answer so obvious? It's as plain as the nose on
your face. Can this valley that is full
of bones, and they're dry bones, they're long dead, they're well
dead, can these bones live? Why the answer is so clear, it's
no. The answer must be no. But all
the vanity of men. How many men say yes, they can
live? Isn't that really the ministry
of the Armenian? They say that the sinner can
live, he can respond, he's got some ability in himself. When
he hears the word of God, when he hears the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, he can respond. That's the vanity of men. And now God has to humble man
to the very dust. You see those words again that
we were considering last Lord's Day. Thou turnest man to destruction. All before faith came we were
kept under the law. Shut up to the faith that should
afterward be revealed. Now God has to shut us up and
shut us in and close us off. and show us that the answer must
be no, we cannot give ourselves any spiritual life at all. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth. It is of God that showeth mercy. The sinner must be born again,
and what is it to be born again? It's to be born from above. The sinner has no active part
in his regeneration, his new birth, it's a sovereign act of
God and the man can do nothing until he's born again which were
born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man but of God. Oh, it is God's prerogative.
Salvation is of the Lord and it is of the Lord in every possible
sense it is of the Lord in that it involves all the persons in
the Godhead Father, Son and Holy Ghost there is the electing love
of the Father, He has chosen a people and those people that
He chose in the eternal covenant He committed into the hands of
His Son and remember we have the covenant now in here, Lord
God all God commits all the elect
into the hands of His Son who is His first elect. And the Son is that One who in
the fullness of time is sent and comes into this world to
work redemption, to accomplish salvation. It's an accomplished
salvation that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. What then? Well, that that was purposed
of the Father that was procured by the Son of God has to be brought
home, has to be applied, has to be made real in the poor sinner's
soul and that's the work of the Blessed Spirit it's all together
of God, it's all together of the grace of God I know the hymn
isn't in Gadsby but I think of those lovely lines in the hymn
by Samuel Davies. Such dire offences to forgive,
such guilty, daring worms to spare, this is thy grand prerogative,
and none shall in the honour share. Oh, it's the glory of
God, that's the ultimate thing in salvation, it's the good of
sinners, thank God for that. Salvation is for sinners, but
ultimately it's all to the honor and the glory of God's name. But what a question this is,
how searching it is, when the Lord God comes to this Son of
Man and says, can these bones live? Man in all his pride and
all his self-sufficiency might want to say, oh yes, or what
must I do to be saved? We have to learn that we can
do nothing. when God comes to search us.
But it's also, in another sense, a gracious question. Does it
not indicate that God has a purpose yet to fulfill in these dry bones? Or is it not intimating that
God is going to do something remarkable? He's going to bring
these people out of Babylon. They're going to be restored. Look at verse 11. He says unto
me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold,
they say, our bones are dried, 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 ye 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 shall
you know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it says
the Lord oh God is going to do something it's it's a gracious
it's a gracious question can these bones live and it reminds
us in in some ways, of that first gospel word that we find in scripture. I know the first gospel promise
is what we have in Genesis 3.15. Those words spoken to the serpent,
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed. There's the first gospel promise.
The first name that is given to the savior of sinners, the
seed of the woman. Oh, that's Christ, the seed of
the woman. The woman was first in the transgression. Ah, but
the seed of the woman. That's the promise of God. But
there is a gospel word previous to that. There in Genesis 3.9,
when God says to Adam and Eve, Where art thou? Where art thou? You know, I referred
to the experience of D'Aubigny, the historian. But you know John
Gill's experience. I hope you've read his biography
by John Ripon. Well, the first gospel application
that ever came to John Gill came when he was 12 years old. And
his minister preached from those words, where art thou? When it came to him with such
power, where art thou John Gill? Where art thou John Gill? Where
art thou Henry Sands? When it comes to us, you see,
it has to come to us so personally, doesn't it? How Gill felt that
word, how it was applied to him, he was just 12 years of age.
Oh, but when God's word comes, you see, where art thou? Can
these bones live with God's prerogative to find the sinner is God's prerogative
to to save the sinner and how really the prophet is acknowledging
here the power of God in the answer that he gives the response
that he makes Oh Lord God he says thou knowest thou knowest and look at what follows chapter 5 verse 5 and verse 6
I said the Lord God unto these bones behold I will cause breath
to enter into you and you 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 in you and
you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord all we
have the the I wills and the ye shall's here don't we? I will says God I will cause
breath to enter into you and ye shall live I will lay sinews
upon you I will bring up flesh upon you I will cover you with
skin I will put breath in you and ye shall live isn't it the
the language of the covenant the shalls, the wills of the
covenant it's what we have there at the end of chapter 16 verse
62 I will establish my covenant with them and thou shalt know
that I am the Lord I will says God and thou shalt oh it's sovereign
grace it's covenant, it's salvation. It's all the work of God. But
the remarkable thing, surely, is this, that we have these words,
we have these promises, and what's the point, what's the purpose
of these things? Well, God will have his people
pray. We have to pray. We read, as
I said, from the previous chapter therein, chapter 36 verse 16
following what God is going to do is going to restore them and
then at verse 37 thus saith the Lord God I will yet for this
be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them I will
increase them with men as a flock all God will do it but he will
have his people pray over these things pleading his exceeding
great and precious promises we looked at that promise that God
gives to his little flock last Thursday as I said and those
words in Luke 12 32 fear not little flock it is your father's
good pleasure to give you the kingdom what are we to do what
is this little remnant to do oh we're to pray We're to plead
with God that he would grant yet that gracious increase, that
in-gathering. And we want to see it to the
glory of God. We want to see Christ seeing
of the travail of his soul. The hand of the Lord was heavy
upon me. Carried me out in the spirit
of the Lord and set me down in the midst of a 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. Again he said unto me, Prophesy
upon these bones, 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
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. Well, if the Lord will, we'll
Go on to consider those verses 4, 5 and 6 this evening. The Lord bless His Word to us.