Good morning. If you would, open
your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel chapter
37. Years ago, a man walked up to
an old preacher and he quoted a verse of scripture that's from
Malachi and from Romans. And he said to that preacher,
he said, preacher, he said, do you have a problem with the verse
of scripture that says, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I
hated? And that preacher looked at him
and said, yes, I do have a problem with that verse of scripture.
And that man said, well, it's nice to meet an honest preacher.
To which the preacher replied and said, I do have a problem
with that verse, but I don't have the same problem that you
have. You wonder how God could hate Esau, but I don't wonder
how God could hate a wretched sinner. He said, my problem is
that I wonder how God could love Jacob, a wretched sinner. We all have a problem. All men
and women have the same problem. We think way too highly of ourselves
and way too lowly of God. We think we deserve something.
We have the right to claim something from God. But we don't. And this morning, I want to take
a few minutes and go through two passages of scripture and
look at who we are and what he's done for his children. How God
could love Jacob, a wretched sinner. Okay, look in Ezekiel
chapter 37 and verse 1. We'll see here the truth about
human nature. Ezekiel 37 verse 1, The hand
of the Lord was upon me, Ezekiel, 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. Do you want to
know the truth about our fallen state? Do you want to see what
we really are as a result of Adam's transgression? This is
it. Evidently, there had been a battle
fought in this valley years and years before, and many were killed. Their bones were scattered about
in the sand. They were bleached white. They
were so dry and parched that a dog would not have even picked
one up. All the moisture, all the marrow,
all the life gone out of them for many years. Dry, dead, lifeless
bones. Like these dry bones, by nature,
we are without help. We are without hope. We are without
Christ and without God in this world. The dead sinner cannot
feel. The dead sinner cannot fear. We cannot love. We cannot will,
we cannot repent, and we cannot believe because we are devoid
of spiritual life. We're dead. Now mark this Ezekiel
37 because we'll come back to it. But go with me to Lamentations
3. Lamentations is the book right
before Ezekiel. Lamentations chapter 3. And as we look at the first verses
of Lamentations 3, as we read these lamentations or these sorrows
or griefs of Jeremiah before God, let's see if as we hear
them that we come to the same conclusion that Jeremiah does.
Look at verse 1 of chapter 3. I am the man that has seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me
into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned.
He turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my
skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath
builded against me, encompassed me with gall and travail. He
hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. He
hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out. He hath made my chain
heavy. Also, when I cry and shout, He
shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with
hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked.
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret
places. He hath turned aside my ways,
and pulled me into pieces. He hath made me desolate. He
hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath
caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was
a derision to all my people, and their song all the day. He
hath filled me with bitterness, and hath made me drunken with
wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones.
He hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul
far off from peace. I forget prosperity. And then
verse 18 is this conclusion. And I said, my strength and my
hope is perished from the Lord. As Isaiah said, I am cut off. There is no strength or hope
in me. And look at verse 19. Remembering
mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my
soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me. When I
remember my afflictions, when I think and ponder on my misery,
and I think of the corruption of my nature and my flesh, my
soul is humbled and bowed down within me. There is no way that
a man who has seen God in his holiness and the law of God in
its perfect requirements can look within himself or at his
works and find any comfort or any hope. A true sight of oneself
in the presence of God can only convict us. It can only humble
us, and as Jeremiah here, it can only crush us. Now turn back
over and keep Mark in Lamentations 3 to Ezekiel 37. We've read much about our current
state, about what we are, dry, dead bones. And Martin Luther
once said, If a man could get a full view of his sin and his
lost condition as it really truly is, that man would lose his sanity. Look at verse three in Ezekiel
37. And he said unto me, son of man,
can these bones live? This is the question. This is
the question the Lord God put to the prophet. Can men with
blood, with breath, and with bodies stand where these bones
lie in the dust? This is the whole issue of scripture.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Or how about the leper
change his spots? Can we do good that are so accustomed
to evil? Can the fragrance or smell of
the rose come from the grave? Can the cursing tongue praise
the Lord? Can our hate be turned to love? Can pride and arrogance become
humility? Look back at verse three. And
he said unto me, son of man, can these bones live? And the prophet answered, O Lord
God, thou knowest. The prophet gave the only answer
here, O Lord God, thou knowest. The preacher certainly has no
power to accomplish such a miracle. The bones themselves have no
power to raise themselves. So a dead sinner has no more
power to give himself spiritual life than a dead body can raise
itself from the dead. Our Lord said, no man can come
to me except the Father which hath sent him draw me. No man
will ever move toward God until God moves him. By nature, we
not only have no power to live, but we have no desire or will
to live. The psalmist wrote, thy people
are made willing in the day of thy power. Now go back to Lamentations
3. The question of can these bones
live? In Lamentations 3, we come back
to where Jeremiah He's full of sorrow, he's convicted, and he's
crushed by what he sees. Look at verse 21 of Lamentations
3. This I recall to my mind, therefore
have I hope. What does Jeremiah recall here?
Does he recall his works? No, he recalls God's grace. What returns into his heart?
Is it his sin and misery he's been thinking about? Of course
not. It's God's love and mercy. Jeremiah
has spent all this time looking within, and he can only grieve
from what he sees. But now, in this moment, he looks
to Christ, and he shouts, therefore I have hope. Hearing this passage a lot, I
have often thought poorly of Jeremiah from it. Mainly because
I see him write all this out about all the sadness, all the
grief, all the problems he's got. And I think it took you
that long to think back to what the Lord's done for you? But
if I look at myself, what I see is this is what I do in everything.
In every single trial, tribulation, or scenario I find, or even positive,
I always look within. I always say to myself, it's
not fair. Why is this happening to me?
I didn't do anything wrong. It should have happened to them,
not me. What have I ever done? Before I ever, and oftentimes
I don't even do it, But in the moment that the Lord shows it
and turns my attention to Him, that's the only place of comfort
where I can say with Jeremiah, therefore I have hope. Now turn
back over to Ezekiel 37. The question becomes, what caused
Jeremiah to arrive at that verse 21. What has happened that He
can say, ìTherefore I have hope?î The answer is in what the Lord
God did to these dead, dry bones. Look in verse 3 of Ezekiel 37,
ìAnd He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest.î Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones,
and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The
commandment from the Lord is simple. Preach to the bones. Our writer said, our one writer
said, I suppose if one wanted dry dead bones to live, probably
the very last thing he would actually think to do or even
consider to do would be preach to them. But this is God's way
and God's command. Preach the word of the Lord to
them. The word of God is the word of
life. Christ is the Word of God, and
one cannot separate the Word incarnate from the Word written
and the Word spoken. Life-giving sermons are sermons
filled with Christ. It's about His person, His obedience,
His blood, His resurrection, His exaltation, and His intercession. When Christ is preached, that
is, who Christ is, what He did, why He did it, and where He is,
those who are given ears to hear, they hear Christ. The Holy Spirit
and the Word of God, they bring life. This is why the Apostle
Paul determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. For the gospel preached is the
power of God to salvation. Go back to verse 5, 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. The message that God gave Ezekiel
to preach was of free and sovereign grace. The message was not to
appeal to the bones, not to ask them to do something for God,
but it was a proclamation of what God was pleased to do to
them and for them. I will cause breath to enter
into you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews, I will lay
flesh and skin upon you, and you shall know that I am the
Lord." The word here is not, I will if you will, but rather
God says, I will and you shall. God's will and purpose are not
subject to man's depraved will. He works, God works all things
after the counsel of His will, and He makes us willing. Through
the years, preachers have been exhorted not to preach God's
sovereignty, not to preach His covenant mercies, His elective
grace, and His effectual particular redemption to sinners. But these
are the very truths that God instructed the prophet here to
preach to these dead bones. Tell them who God is, what they
are, and what God is pleased to do for them in Christ Jesus. And what will be the results?
Look at 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 the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above,
but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, 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 unto them, and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army. we would learn a lot from following
what the prophet here, what the preacher did. He said to the
Lord, O Lord God, thou knowest. He didn't presume anything. He
didn't act like he had the ability or power for anything. The Lord
told him what to say, and he said it. And once that ended,
he stopped. And the Lord told him what to
say, and he said it again. And then he stopped. And then
the Lord told him what to say and life came to those dead,
dry bones. Now turn back to Lamentations. The Lord has given the dead sinner
life. Though we spend way too much
time lamenting the things of this world and of our sin, Because
of the sacrifice of our Lord, we do have hope. We have a hope
because we have a Savior. And what is this blessed hope?
Look at Lamentations 3 verse 21. This I recall to my mind,
therefore have I hope. Now Jeremiah is going to list
the things that give him hope. In verse 22, it is of the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail
not. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. The
Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in
Him. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that
a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. The first of these six hopes
that it lists is, it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. Psalm 130 says, if God should
mark iniquity, none shall stand. But with the Lord, there is forgiveness
and mercy. We deserve condemnation. And our hope is that God will
be merciful to us in Christ. The second hope, his compassions
fail not, and they are new every morning. God is love, and his
love for his people shall never fail. We struggle with this because
as sinners, we don't really understand the term and concept love. But
God is love. Love begins with God. We did
not love God, but rather hated Him, yet He loved us. His love
is unchanging. It does not change despite what
we do, what we say, and how poor we act and behave. And His love
is infinite. It never ends. It has no cap
on how powerful it is. It has no restraints, no inabilities. There's nothing His love can't
do. And we're thankful for that because it takes an infinite
love to save a dry, dead bone. The third hope is great is God's
faithfulness. God is faithful to Himself and
to His Word. God is faithful to His covenant
He made, and God is faithful to His Son. We hear many messages
nowadays exhorting us to faith, what we should do, how we should
believe, things we should do to show our faith. But our hope
of our life and glory is in His faith to us. The fourth hope
is the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will hope in him. As our father, as our husband,
as our brother, and as our friend, he has our total care spiritually,
physically, and materially. If the Lord, by his choice, he
made the choice to be our portion, if he's our portion, therefore,
will I hope in him and need nothing. Fifthly, the Lord is good to
them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him. Has there
ever been a man who has truly waited on the Lord? Has there
ever been a man who's truly seeked the Lord? No, of course not.
God forbid. I waited and I found the Lord. And when I found him afterward,
I knew and I realized that it was he who actually found me. This is our hope that the Lord
is good. And sixthly, we hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lord. Again, Our hope is weak
inside of us. What we hope in is immensely
strong, but our hope is weak, and our ability to be quiet is
nil. We cannot be quiet. But we hope
and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Salvation is of
the Lord. Those five words is the believer's
hope. Salvation is of the Lord. It
is of the Lord in its planning, It is of the Lord in its execution.
Its application is of Him. Its sustaining power is from
Him. And in Him is its ultimate perfection. We have a great hope in the Lord,
though we were once dead, dry bones. We look within and we
find nothing except guilt, shame, and it crushes us. Thankfully,
the Lord knows that those bones can live. And He has shown His
children that there is hope. He has sent us someone to preach
the gospel to us. He has come to us and shown us
the truth. He's shown us what He's done
for us. And thankfully, He gives us many, many examples of what
our hope is and what we have in glory. And may it be His will
that we are not the only ones here who he has given life to
from dead, dry bones. And our prayer is that the Lord
would continue to call out his children among this place, and
that he leave us with no dead, dry bones, but with children
that have been saved through the mercy and grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Okay.