Alright, go with me if you would
back to Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel 37, let's read through
these first four verses. 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. Apparently a battle was fought
here. Because the end of verse 10 says,
an exceeding great army. Whatever the reason though for
the death of these people, verse 2 says, there were very many
of them. And they'd been there a long
time because it was only bones. That's all that was there. It
was only bones. And they were very dry. No moisture in them. No life at all. Very dry. As dead as dead can be. Verse 3 says, And he said unto
me, Son of man, Can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord
God, thou knowest." That's a great answer. You know. Verse 4, again, He said unto
me, Prophesy upon these bones. Preach to these bones. And saying to them, Oh ye dry
bones, hear the word of the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. What if this is the last time
you hear the gospel? What if this is the last time
I preach the gospel? That's going to be the case at
some point. That is going to be the case at some point. You
will hear the gospel for the last time. And I won't know it in the moment,
but I will preach the gospel for the last time. What if someone in this room
meets God today? It's going to be the case at
some point. We're all going to meet God. I think about that
a lot. I think about that a lot. I have
been called to think about that. I think about it a lot. I don't know why so many preachers
and so many churches want to play games. I don't I don't know
why. literally revolve everything
around games and entertainment. We're not here to entertain. Now, I personally love entertainment. I love entertaining, having people
over to our house and we'll cook dinner. I love the movies. Anybody who's known me for a
while knows I love music. We have some wonderful forms
of entertainment in this world. This is not one of them. It's just not one of them. Somebody
is next. So if I seem a little serious
at times, you understand why. Sometimes it just overwhelms
me a little bit. I'm telling you the truth. We all know it's
so. Somebody's next. Somebody's next. This is a serious thing, a serious
calling. I don't want to give you a dissertation
this morning. That won't do you a bit of good. I don't want to just set forth
an outline to you. I want to tell you something.
I want to sincerely tell you something. I don't want to just
tell the air something. I don't want to just tell the
internet something. If someone hears this on the internet, wonderful.
I want to tell you something. I want to tell you something.
And I want to tell you this because this is what God has commanded
me to tell you. And I'm telling myself. Hear
the Word of the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. Error comes. Being wrong comes
from listening to a man. Man has it wrong. Man has it wrong. Anything that
I say that is not in this book is wrong. Let God be true, and
every man a liar. Starting with this one right
here. Man has it wrong. It may seem right to me. There
is a way that seems right unto man. But every time, the end
of it is destruction. It seems right to me. That's
what I'm going to stick to. Is it in God's Word? I don't
know. It's destruction. It's destruction. A true preacher
will only repeat the word of the Lord. Hear the word of the
Lord. Now here is a key. Here's a key
to peace. Here's a key to understanding
the scripture. Here's a key to finding and laying
hold of the truth. Here's how we can say, I believe
I finally found the truth. Hear the word of the Lord. Hear
the word, not me. Not anybody else. Hear the word
of the Lord. As long as we are hearing the
words of men, no matter how much we love the man, no matter how
much we respect the man, People are searching for the
truth. I know they are. I know they are. I am. So people will listen to what
this man has to say. And then they'll listen to what
this man over here has to say. And there are some very famous
men that a lot of people listen to. And the reason they listen to
them is because they say, I will explain to you the word of the
Lord. Let me explain to you the word
of the Lord. Not declare it. Explain it. And in the process,
they explain it away. God has said what God has said. But these men, they say, let
me explain to you what he means. I know he said what he said.
I know that's what it says. Let me explain to you what he
means. After they're finished, you no longer have the Word of
God. Does he preach out of the Bible? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he opens
the Bible. But as soon as he's finished
with it, you don't have the Word of God anymore. You don't have the Word
of the Lord anymore. As long as we're listening to
the words of men, We're going to stay so confused. We're going
to stay so unsettled on what the truth actually is. Well,
he's saying this and he's saying that. You know, it's so different.
So many men with so many sayings. As long as we're listening to
the words of men, we will never find peace. We will never find
rest, we'll never find contentment, and we'll remain in the condition
that we're in. Now hold your place right here
and see if you can find the book of Amos. Amos chapter 8. In my Bible it's page 1147. If
that helps you at all. Amos chapter 8. Amos chapter 8 verse 11 says,
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, saith the Lord God,
that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water, there's going to be plenty of that, plenty
of bread, plenty of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea
to sea, and from the north even to the east. They shall run to
and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it."
What do you mean, shall not find it? Here it is. Yeah, here it is. For the most
part, almost every time it's opened up, it's explained away. The word of man cannot save anyone. The word of a man cannot save
anyone. The only hope we have is to hear
the word of the Lord. That's the only hope. Now go
with me back to Ezekiel 37 and let's hear the word of the Lord. Ezekiel 37 verse 11 tells us
what this is all about. Then he said unto me, Son of
man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. These bones
represent all of God's people. These bones that he's seeing
in this valley, they represent all of God's people, spiritual
Israel. God said in Romans nine, they
are not all Israel, which are of Israel. He's not talking about
national Israel. He's talking about spiritual
Israel. All of God's elect. All those
that God chose to redeem. Chose to live with forever. He calls them New Jerusalem.
Heavenly Jerusalem. This right here is salvation.
This is how it works. This is who it's to. This is the truth. This right
here is the truth. Here's the truth of the matter.
Verse 1, Ezekiel 37, verse 1 says, 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. We
are all naturally dead in trespasses and sins. Now, I cannot convince
you of that. I can't. I cannot convince myself of that. You can't convince yourself of
that. It's going to take the Spirit
of God to convince a sinner that he or she is dead in trespasses
and sins. We grow. We walk. We talk. We learn. And to tell someone
you're dead in trespasses and sins, that's something that the
natural flesh cannot understand. Spiritual deadness. Just cannot
understand it. But that's the Word of the Lord. And if that's what the Lord said
we are, then that's what we are. Can't explain it away. That's
just what we are. Dead, very dry, as dead as dead
can make. Now, a dead man and a dead woman
can't do anything. What can a dead man do? All of
these bones, all they can do is be dead. That's all they can
do. But the word of the Lord is to
the dead. This is glorious. The word of the Lord is to the
dead. And he's not about to say, now
y'all need to go ahead and put yourselves back together, okay?
That's what you need to do. He's not about to tell them that. Verse 3, And he said unto me,
Son of man, can these bones live? That's the question. That's the
reason we're here. Is there any salvation for these
bones? Can life come back to these bones? They were born and they died. Can they be born again? Can they
be born again? Verse 3 says, And I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest." I have nothing to do with this. I have
nothing to do with this. This is what I'm here to tell
you today. I have nothing to do with this. I am not going
to save anybody today. I've never saved a person in
my life. I have nothing to do with this.
Son of man, can these bones live? Only you know. Only you know. This is all in your hands. Verse
4, again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones. Preach to them. Preach to them. That's the means
I've chosen to use. That's the means God has chosen
to use. Preach to them. Now see if you
can get this in your mind. Can you envision Ezekiel standing
out in a field, surrounded by bones, white sun-dried bones,
holding a Bible, preaching. Can you envision that? He's literally
standing in a field of dry bones, holding a Bible, preaching. Just
him and the bones. That's all he's doing. He's not
doing anything other than preaching to them. And that means reading
God's Word to them. The majority of preaching is
reading God's Word. Just declaring God's Word. Just
reading the Word. That's why the world calls this
foolishness. What? That's all you're going
to do? That's all you're going to offer
them? That's all you're going to do for them? How useless That's
so useless. You mean to tell me you're not
going to go out and gather up all the bones and organize them? We've got to get an organization
going here. If we're going to create life
here, we've got to get an organization going. We're going to have to
get all the femur bones together. We're going to have to start
a femur bones group. And then we're going to have
to start a knee bone group. And then we're going to start
matching them up. We're going to be matchmakers. That'll be
our ministry. That's what we'll do. We've got
to get them active. That's the key. You've got to
get out there and get them active. You've got to get them involved
in something. I'm telling you, they'll just
be dead bones involved in something. That's all it'll be. The Apostle Paul said in Romans
1, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, the declaration of
the word of the Lord, for it is the power of God unto salvation. God said, preach to them, hear
the word of the Lord. Here it is. Verse five. 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 sinews 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 I will and you shall that's the
gospel that's the truth that's salvation
God will and we shall people ask the question what are you
gonna do with God now come on What are you going to do with
God? I'm not going to do anything with Him. I'm not going to do
anything with Him. The true question is, what is
He going to do with me? I'm not going to do anything
for Him. Now what are you all doing for Jesus down there? I'm
not going to do anything for Him. My only hope is that He
has done something for me. That's my only hope. What is
the truth of salvation? How are men and women saved? Well, this man over here says,
you've got to give him your heart and then he will save you. And this man over here says,
you have to accept him as your personal savior and then he will
save you. This poor man back here says,
now he's done all he can do. What you're going to have to
do is you're going to have to get yourself in a position where you really
don't need saving anymore. You're going to have to become
so good and perfect on your own where you really don't need saving
anymore. And then after you accomplish
that, then he'll save you. God says they're all dead, dry
bones. Stand up in the midst of them.
Lift up your voice with strength. and cry, O ye dry bones, hear
the word of the Lord. I will and you shall. That is the gospel. That's the
best news a dead dry bone could ever hear. That's the best news. I will and you shall. That is
the message of the entire book. Genesis to Revelation. I will
and you shall. That's every page. Every page
in this book. God is not waiting on anyone
to ask him to save them. The message this morning is not,
now won't you ask Jesus to let you into his heart? Let you into
your heart. That's not the message. God is not waiting for someone
to let Him save you. He wants to so badly. If you
just go ahead and let Him, God is not waiting on anyone to let
Him save them. Look back at chapter 36, Ezekiel
36, verse 7 says, Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I have. Lifted up my hand. Verse 9, He
said, For behold, I am I will. Verse 10, he said, I will. Verse
11, he said, I will. Verse 12, he said, I will. Isaiah 45, he said, I am the
Lord, I do all these things. Look at chapter 36, verse 18,
he said, wherefore I poured out my fury upon them. Verse 19,
he said, I scattered them. Verse 21, he said, but I had
pity for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned
among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the
house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, I do not this for your
sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which
you have profaned among the heathen, whether you went." What is his
holy name? Jesus Christ. That's who we're
talking about. That's who we've been talking
about this whole time. Verse 23, he said, I will sanctify
my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you
have profaned in the midst of them, and the heathen shall know
that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified
in you before their eyes. Now, do you notice right there,
he said, I am the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital
D. Sayeth the capital L, lowercase
o, lowercase r, lowercase d. I am Jehovah, the Almighty. Sayeth Jesus Christ, God. The God who redeemed us. The
God who hung on that tree for us. The God who did all these
things. He said in verse 24, right there
in chapter 26, I will take you from among the heathen. I will
gather you out of all countries and will bring you into your
own land. 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. People are always talking about
giving Jesus their heart. And a man made this statement
one time. It sounds a little hard to me.
Sounds a little bit like a hard statement. And I don't mean for
it to be, but it's so true. It's so true in reference to
everybody wanting to give their heart to Jesus. He said he doesn't
want that filthy thing. Everybody's wanting to give him
their heart. When we look inside, all we see is a filthy, rotten,
putrefying, hard, wicked, heart. And people look at that and they
take that and say, I think I'll give that to Jesus. He doesn't
want that filthy thing. He said, I'm going to throw that
away. I'm going to take out that heart of stone. And I'm going
to put in a heart of flesh, I'm going to put in a living heart,
not a hard dead heart. I'm going to put in the heart
of Christ. Christ in you. That's the hope of glory. Verse
27, he said, I will put my spirit within you. The life that a sinner
receives is the life of Christ in that sinner. And he goes on
down through the rest of that chapter saying, I will, I will,
I will. God said, that's what I want
you to preach to my bones. God starts it. God performs it. It's all according to His will.
in his work. Now chapter 37 verse 7. We're
almost finished. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied there was
a noise and behold a shaking. Where was this noise and where
was this shaking? Amongst the bones. inside the
bones. When the Word of the Lord God
Almighty enters bones, things get shaken up. The bones realize,
I never heard this before. I don't think I ever really knew
what the Bible said. I don't think I knew the Word
of the Lord. And a shaking takes place. Verse
seven goes on to say, and the bones came together, bone to
his bone. When salvation comes to a center,
God makes that center complete. You are complete in Christ. You don't have to go do anything
now. Do you want to be saved? Sit still. Don't come down to
the front. Sit still, you're complete in
Christ. And when God opens a sinner's
eyes to that, they see that they were united bone to His bone. That's what makes us complete.
You are now bone of His bone. Ephesians 5 says we are members
of His bones. Psalm 34 says, he keepeth all
his bones, not one of them is broken. Don't you love how on
the cross of Calvary all those things happened to him? Whipped,
beaten, spit on, crown of thorns in his head, nails in his hands. He said, I'm suffering so greatly
I could almost die before I even go to the cross. His visage was
marred more than any man. No man saw the suffering that
he saw. And Pilate said, I want you to
go break all their bones, all three of them. You go hit them
in the shins and break their shin bones. And they broke that
thief on the left's bones. They broke that thief on the
right's bones. And when they came to Christ, they said, he's dead
already. And not one of his bones was
broken. He was that his bones might not be. And they pierced
him and out flowed blood and water. You're members of his bones.
He was broken, so his bones would never have to be broken. Verse seven, 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. That covering is the blood and
the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The covering that only He can
give, that covering of perfection, redemption, satisfaction, only
He can give that. We can't earn it. It comes through
His life and His death only. It says, but there was no breath
in Him. Life does not come from the preacher. Remove me. Don't look to me. Don't lift
me up on a pedestal. And don't think that just because
any man stands up and quotes the words of this scripture that
life is coming. It does not come through the
preacher. It's only by God's Holy Spirit. Only by God's Spirit. Verse nine, then said he unto
me, prophesy unto the wind, the breath. The Spirit prophesies,
son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come
from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe upon these slain
that they may live. Cry out to God's Spirit, oh Lord,
please come into this place. Please send your spirit into
this place. Only you can breathe the breath
of life into your bones. Verse 10. So I prophesied as
he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived
and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army. I love
that line. He has a number no man can number. I can't wait to see the exceeding
great army. Then he said unto me, Son of
man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. And here's how
you can know who they are. This is how you can spot one
of my bones, okay? Am I a bone? Here's how you can
know. Verse 11, Behold, they say, Our
bones are dried. By nature, we're just dead. We're
just dead sinners. That's something you don't hear
too much of anymore. You don't hear people going around
crying, I'm nothing but an unworthy dead sinner. They say, oh, I'm
nothing like what I used to be. Yeah, there was a time in my
life when I was a dead bone, but not anymore. The Apostle Paul said, Christ
came to save sinners of whom I am chief, not was. They all cry, this is how you
know me, all cry, I'm just a dead bone. Verse 11, and our hope
is lost. If you leave me to myself, I'm
going to die in my sins. Verse 11, we are cut off for
our parts. We acknowledge our transgressions.
Our sin is ever before you. We deserve to be cut off. Oh,
wretched men and women that we are. Verse 12, therefore prophesy
and say unto them. He said, keep preaching to them.
Don't stop yet. My word is not finished yet.
Thus saith the Lord God. Behold, O my people, I will open
your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and
bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am
the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought
you up out of your graves and shall put my spirit in you and
you shall live. and I shall place you in your
own land, then shall you know that I, the Lord, have spoken
it and performed it, saith the Lord." He said, I'm going to
cause every one of my bones to know that salvation is of the
Lord. It's of the Lord. That's how
you're going to know who my bones are. They're going to understand
my word. They're going to see me in it. They're going to know the truth
of the matter. I spoke it. I performed it. They're all going
to say, and this is what I say, and this is what we say, I did
not choose to be saved. I was just a dead bone. I did not make my decision. I
was just a dead bone. I did not take the first step.
I was just a dead bone. I didn't believe. I was just a dead bone. But He
gave me faith and I believe now. I believe that the Lord spoke
it. I believe the Lord performed
it. I believe salvation is of the Lord. I believe that. That's
what we believe, isn't it? That's what we believe. If we
believe that, you know what that means? We must be his bones. We must be his bones. Oh, you
dry bones, hear the glorious word of the Lord. Stand together
with me.