Now this morning, we are going
to look at Ezekiel chapter 37. Title of the message, Can these
bones live? Can a sinner live again? I believe
it was Job who said, If a man die, shall he live again? Let
us look at that this morning. He says in verse 1, and he starts
with the preacher. In verse 1, Ezekiel says, The
hand of the Lord was upon me. Paul said, Who is sufficient
for these things? But God is our sufficiency. No
man is sufficient for handling eternal matters. But God is our
sufficiency. No amount of formal education
can make us sufficient. The ability to rightly divide
the word and to preach it in power is of God. Now he says
he carried me out in the spirit and sent me down in the midst
of the valley which was full of bones. He carried me. Christ is our strength in his
service. He carries. He must strengthen. He must direct
us where to preach the gospel. He appoints the place, the time,
and the service. He sent me down, he says, in
the Valley of Dry Bones. This does not look like a place
for a tent meeting, does it? Who would hold a tent meeting
in a graveyard? Our natural tendency is to look at the well water
plains of Jordan. Why the tri-state area and not
New York City where eight million people live? I'll tell you why,
because the Lord sends his preachers where his sheep are. This valley
of bones are my people, even though they don't look like it
yet. He calls me to pass by them, he says in verse 2. Round about,
just as Moses took that serpent of brass on the pole and passed
round about the people. They could not pass by him, they
were dead. Here is a marvel of grace that God would pass by,
that God would come into the midst of such a people. that
God would look upon dead, depraved people like me and you. There's
nothing attractive in this scene, is there? There's nothing attractive
about God's people here in this valley. Behold, he says, they
were very many in the open valley and they were very dry. They
were very dead. One thing is for sure, whatever
went on here, they lost. They lost. You don't have to
be overly intelligent to see they lost the battle. If we will
give a serious look at human nature and human history, it
will become evident we lost. When Adam met Satan in the garden,
he lost. When that happened, we lost.
We lost the way to God, the truth of God, and the life of God.
All was lost in Adam. Nothing left. This earth is one
big graveyard. There is not an inch of this
earth that something has not died on it. Now he says here
they were very dry, very dead. It has been that way now for
a long time. No sign of spiritual life at all. No spiritual intelligence,
which is the only intelligence that really matters. Dead. The image of God erased. You
could write Ichabod over this valley. The glory has departed.
Unless God does something, it's not coming back. The glory of
this people was the image of God. It was a likeness of their
creator. But sin has taken it away. Very
dry, no moisture, no marrow left in the bones. All life and strength
is gone. Scripture says none seeketh after
God, no not one. And he said to me, God must speak
to the preacher first. If God does not speak to me first,
then I don't need to be speaking to you. Our warrant for preaching
is thus saith the Lord. He gives us our message and the
people to preach it to. And God asked the preacher a
question. He said, Son of man, can these bones live? He starts
with his preacher first. If the preacher does not get
it right, the people will not get it right. Can these bones
possess life again? Can sinners live again? Can sinners
ever worship God again? Can they sing again? Can they
ever know God again? Can the image of God be restored
to these dead bones? And the preacher gave a wise
answer. And I answered, Lord, God, thou knowest. Only God can
give the answer to this question. Only God can give life. And if
he's pleased to do so, then these bones can live again. Again,
he said unto me, prophesy there in verse four upon these bones
and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The
first command God gives is to preach unto them. It says in
Corinthians, It hath pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them to believe. He commands Ezekiel to preach
to them and tell them to hear the word of the Lord. Faith comes
by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord. The first thing
God commands is for His word to be preached and heard. It
is God who commands the hearing ear and the seeing eye of faith.
By faith we hear not only the written word of God preached,
but the living word, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we hear
Him, And we hear the Lord, we hear life and He commands life
and we live. And God tells them what He's
going to do for them. He's not saying tell them to
do something for me. He says I'm going to do something for
them. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold I will
cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. I will lay
sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you
with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and
you shall know that I am the Lord." God tells us in His Word
what He's going to do for us, what He's going to do for us
and has done for us in Christ. He has given His people all heavenly
blessings in Him. He has justified them in Christ. He has given them forgiveness
in Christ. He's made them new creatures in Christ. That's what
He's done for His people. And who are his people? Everyone
who believes God. Everyone who truly believes this gospel, not
a gospel, not another gospel, but this gospel of Christ alone,
the scriptures alone, grace alone. What he's saying here is this,
salvations of the Lord. He purposed to save these bones
and he tells them that he is going to give them life and all
that pertains to it. God has given us in Christ, He's
given every believer in Christ life from the dead and all that
they need they have in Christ. Nothing lacking. He is their
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Our Lord said,
because I live you shall live also. So what does Ezekiel do
in verse 7? He says, so I preached as I was
commanded. He did not question the wisdom
of God or the power of God. He preached. He did not try to
get these bones to do something or to accept something or to
accept someone. He preached. God will bless his
word and nothing else. Ezekiel did not try to put the
bones together. He would have messed that up.
He would have put the wrong bone with the wrong body. Only the
great physician could put it back together. This is God's
work, not ours. We just preach. So I preached
as I was commanded. And there was a voice, a noise.
And behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone is
bone, and the skin covered it above, but there was no breath
in them. Listen, when I did as I was commanded,
things began to happen. God began to save. He began to
do what He said He would do. There was a noise, there was
a voice, God speaking. God is commanding life, a new
creation is happening, a new man is being made. And there
was a shaking, all false hopes are being shaken off. The dust
of death is being shaken off. The bones came together. That which was scattered in the
battle is being brought back together and becoming one again. Scripture says that we are one
in Christ. This shaking is still going on
and one day the last bone will be placed in the body of Christ
and the body will be complete. All the signs of life are there
and the smell of death is gone. But wait, it says there's no
breath in them. Until this happens, they are still dead. A man is
not saved until he has the Spirit of God in him. Until he is quickened
and given life by the Spirit of God, he is still dead. Christ
in you, the Scripture says, is the hope of glory. If the Gospel
comes to you in word only, you may look like you have life,
but you don't. Not until God does the work of grace in you,
not until God gives you life from the dead, are you alive.
Then he said unto me, Preach unto the wind. And we know that
the wind represents the Spirit of God. Preach to the wind. Preach,
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. The whole work is of God. Not
at any point did they contribute to the work. The preacher is
told to call upon the Spirit of God to come and give life
to these dead bodies, these dead souls. Ezekiel did not tell those
bones to do something for God, but for God to do something for
them. We need God to do something for us in mercy and grace or
we perish. So I preached as I was commanded.
Obedience is priceless. And the breath came unto them
and they lived just as He said they would. Nothing is impossible
with God. Life is His to give if He will.
He quickens whom He will. Saving a sinner is not a challenge
to God. It's not a challenge to God.
It's a matter of His will. That's right. You and I are in
the hands of the sovereign God of heaven and earth and He will
do with us as He will. I ask Him for mercy. I'm begging
for mercy. I don't know about you, but that's
what I want. Now listen, verse 10. And they
stood upon their feet an exceeding great army. They did as they
were commanded. He said, Stand up. And they stood
up. And what a great army. And these bones, He said, are
my left. And they say, We are sinful. There is no hope for
us. You look over in Ezekiel 36 chapter
36 and verse 31 sometime. Repentance. That's what's going
on here. Repentance. Not until we have
life do we have repentance. Repentance does not give life,
it's the evidence of life. Isaiah said, Woe is me. Paul
said, O wretched man that I am. This is the cry of a saved man. This is the cry of a man who's
been given life. And here's good news. Good news
comes now. Tell them, instruct them, behold,
O my people, I will open your graves and bring you out in the
land of Israel, the land that I promised to your fathers. Death
hath no more dominion over you, for sin has no more dominion
over you. You are not under the law, but you're under the grace
of God. The law has been satisfied by
Jesus Christ, and in Him I'm under the grace of God. I'm not
under law. God is going to bring His Israel,
His true Israel, which are all those who believe. He is going
to bring them into the promised land, into glory, when this is
all over with. And you are going to know, He
says, that I am the Lord. This is what you are going to
know when all of this is over with. You are going to know that
I am the Lord. God shall save us in such a way. And we will know that He is the
Lord, and beside Him there is none else. We won't have any
of these false idols. We won't be having all these
pictures hanging on the wall and calling it Jesus. We won't
have all that foolishness. We will know who the Lord is. And verse 14, And I 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. When God
puts his Spirit in you, then shall you live, and you will
know that God is faithful to his word. He will perform that
which he has spoken. You'll know, he said, that I
have performed this. You'll know, you will know that I am the one
who has saved you from Alpha to Omega. As the song goes, Not until then
shall we know how much we owe. Not until we stand in His presence,
fully complete, fully redeemed, body, soul, and spirit, shall
we know how much we owe. May God bless His Word.