in your Bibles to the Old Testament and to Ezekiel chapter 37. So following the books of Jeremiah
and Lamentation, you should run head on into the book of Ezekiel. This is that famous description in Ezekiel 37. We're going to use the first
ten verses in our reading. But this is that huge valley
of dead, dry bones. And the Lord leads his prophet
to this place, and it is unbelievable what follows. Chapter 37, the book of Ezekiel,
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 middle," the King James,
the midst, I think is better translated, middle 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? Can these dead, dry bones live? This prophet is a clear-thinking man. He said,
O Lord God, I don't know, but You know. It takes more than a man to do
anything for a valley full of dry, dead bones. Verse 4, Again he said unto me,
Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O you dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God unto these
bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall
live. And I'll lay sinews upon you,
and I'll bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin,
and put breath in you, and you shall live." Now, it's necessary
for you and me to understand clearly that this
language is to be understood in a dimension besides physical. This has to do with God awakening
dead sinners to life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here is a graphic
picture of what is involved in the saving of a single soul,
whether it be mine or yours. And the last phrase, or actually
a sentence, but it's part of another sentence as well, is
in verse 6, and you shall know when God raises these dead bones
to life, you shall know that I am the Lord. Do you know there is an unbelievable
number of people walking the streets on this globe called
earth who claim to be believers, who would not dare subscribe
to what we've just read. They believe salvation at best
is part their work and part God's, and God's can't work unless they
do theirs. Well, if it don't, you just well
to go ahead and get prepared to go to hell, because that's
where we're all going, if that's the case. So the prophet says in 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,
the muscles, and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered
them above. But there was no breath in them."
No breath at all. Therefore, completely dead. Then said he unto me, Prophesy
unto the wind, preach to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and
say to the wind, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four
winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may
live. When it comes to the physical
part of this passage, it is obvious that in this valley there must
have been one of the most awful battles ever to transpire anywhere
on this globe. That this valley is full of dry,
dead bones. So I prophesied, verse 10, as
he commanded me, And the breath came into them, and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." Now
I want to look at this brief passage and some of the statements
that we've already read that I'll remind you of as we go through
this. But I would like to address this
question in verse 3, when the Lord asks Ezekiel, can these
bones live? So whether it be to a congregation
or a group or an individual or a group of individuals that one
speaks to them about divine things and about the Lord Jesus Christ
in particular, We ought to apply this question, can these dry,
dead, helpless bones live? Human beings who have a perfect
physical constitution and everything is still working right, but we
are all spiritually dead. until God raises us to life in
Christ. You and I can't climb out of
death. Lord, we can't even climb out of a financial disorder,
let alone death. Oh, but God can. Not only can He, but He has. And He's still in that business,
and when He's no longer in it, This world will have ceased to
exist. It's going to stand until the
last sheep is brought home to faith in Christ. And then time
will be no more and we'll be in eternity. So Ezekiel tells us in regard
to this vision as we have come to know it as, that the Lord
sat him down in the middle of this huge valley. And he takes this prophet to
this place to teach him some things that everybody needs to
know. How do dead sinners come to life
in Christ? How can God raise us from the
dead? The first thing is that a true
preacher must be taught concerning the state and condition of his
congregation. Which outside of grace and outside
of Christ, it's a morgue. We're all dead. Totally dead. beyond hope, if that hope means
referring to ourselves. Man by nature has died in trespasses
and in sins. Romans 5.12 says, by one man's
sin, death entered this race and all men died in him except
for the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15-22,
in Adam, all die. In Christ, all are made alive. I tell you, you've got to find
out how you can get out from under Adam and enter into the
Lord Jesus Christ in an act of saving grace upon our souls.
Ephesians 2-1 describes people to whom this very thing has transpired
and taken place. You has God quickened, made alive,
who were dead in trespasses and sins. That's the opening statement
of Ephesians chapter 2. So it is very important then
for you and me to learn these very things. Romans 7.18 says, in the flesh
dwells no good thing. Romans 8 and verse 8, in the
flesh no man can serve God. None of us. I ain't talking about myself,
but you guys can be as brilliant as brilliant can be. You can
have more talent than a thousand people just like you. But what does it avail? In the flesh, no man can please
God, Romans 8 and verse 8. Worse than that, the Bible says
that there are none that seek after God. We are content in our own little
world, and we don't want God messing up our playhouse, our
ambitions, our goals, whatever they happen to be. But alas,
if you're His, He's coming for you. You belong to Him, and I don't
know whether you do or not. And you probably don't know whether
you do or not. But if He's looking for you,
He'll find you. And then you will find him, but
not until then. So this is a serious matter. We shall have no effective gospel
ministry without this understanding. We are without God, without Christ,
therefore without help and without hope. And our only hope is for
God to put in our hearts a cry for mercy. And then come and fulfill that
desire. Alright, look back at verse 3
one more time. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these thones
live? as if to say, Ezekiel, you should
be able to answer this question. Can these bones live? Oh, he
answered it all right, but not in the way that we would think. When God shows one of his preachers
the true condition of men He then calls them to consider some
great questions regarding this vital matter. Can dead sinners
live with God? Can unjust men be just with God? Can those who love darkness be
made to love light? Namely, the light of the world,
the Lord Jesus. Can men who hate God actually
be made to love him? Well, if it ain't the case, we're
wasting our time. Can men who love evil hunger
for holiness and righteousness? Job put it this way, how can
man be just with God? How can a man be justified in
God's sight? Jeremiah put it this way, can
the Ethiopian change the color of his skin or the leopard his
spots? These things are unchangeable.
If we could not do these simple things, What on earth do we dream
of being our own Savior and saving our own souls? This is a supernatural
work. It is beyond us. Oh, it is beyond
us. The disciples put it this way
when our Lord made some statements that to their ears were just
absolutely incredible. When he sent away the rich young
ruler, for example, they were, if I remember right, that's where
the passage is where they made this statement. I'll add a little word that's
not in there. If this man cannot be saved, how shall we be saved? Now, the Lord has saved some
rich people. There's a few of them in our
Bibles, but not many. Not many noble, not many wealthy,
not many high ups are actually called by the grace of God. But
some are. Definitely some indeed are. We are not talking now in regard
to these things about mechanical things of religion in which these
bones are wired together by religious tradition and customs and ceremonies. And the preacher says, if you'll
do this and if you'll do that and you'll do the other, you'll
do just fine. You're on your way to heaven.
But that's not what this says. And that's not what this book
says. Not at all. Not at all. In the second part of verse 3, Ezekiel said, and I answered this question,
can these bones live? Ezekiel said, O Lord God, you
know, and you alone know, the triune God, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Ezekiel carefully considered
the dead dry bones. Any man in his right mind would
have answered exactly as he did. This is impossible with men,
and so it is in the spiritual realm. It is impossible with
men. According to Ephesians 2.1, the
same verse that we quoted partially earlier, And you has God quickened who
were dead in trespasses and in sins. Now, for God to quicken
us, it is to make us alive. But we are, for the most part,
still physically alive, though some of us are beginning to lose
some of what we used to have, I guess, if you want to put it
that way. But not so in the spiritual realm. Spiritually. We're corpses. We're dead. Dead in trespasses
and sins. Romans 9.16 says, It's not of
him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. Mercy comes from above. Not from
below. You've heard this expression
a million times. Let's get it one more time. Salvation, God's salvation, is
of the Lord. It's not God cooperating with
me. It's not me cooperating with
God. It is of the Lord. Those precise
words appear in our Bibles. Do you remember where? Yeah,
whereabouts in Jonah? I thought it was 2.10, but it
might be 2.7. I have to be careful asking such
questions, see, I have to think about them, too, and that's one
of those things that's been worked upon in the negative. Where is it, Craig? Oh, yes. We'll split this one
50-50. Salvation is of the Lord. It is a new creation. In 2 Corinthians 5, 17, any man
that be in Christ is a new creature or creation. Old things are passed
away, behold, all things are become new. It is a new birth. The Lord Jesus told that proud
Pharisee Nicodemus, I mean to say that early on,
Nicodemus was still a lost man, and he left the Savior's presence, not having made any progress
in regard to his soul. But he eventually did come to
the Lord Jesus. Our Savior said to him in John
3 and verse 3, You must be born again. And all Nicodemus could
think of, how does a person come out of his mother's womb a second
time? Now, this man is a teacher in
Israel. He teaches other people. He's
a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest muckety-muck group in
the whole nation. But he doesn't Understand that
man is not just a physical being, he is a spiritual being. And when God gives us saving
mercy and grace, then and then only are we born again. Whosoever believes that Jesus
is the Christ, At least this one thing is true about that
person. Whosoever believes that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. You can find those exact words
in 1 John chapter 5 and verse 1. So the new birth is a fake unless a person is truly born
again. It's also called a resurrection
in Scripture. We've been raised from death
to life in Christ. And it is also a revelation. You can find that in 1 Corinthians
2, 8-10. So the Lord's command, we come
now to verse 4, the Lord's command to the prophet seems really strange. until we discover some of the
things that we've been speaking of this morning. Verse 4, Ezekiel
37, Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto
them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. consider ourselves to be rational people. We have issues and conflicts
with the gospel at the very outset. If we take these words physically
and not spiritually, we cannot possibly understand what is taking
place. But Ezekiel is certainly a person
of honesty. Preach to these dry bones. Say
to them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Hear it, hear it, hear it. It is by that word that the gospel
is communicated to the souls of men. And without it, there
is no salvation. None whatsoever. So the fourth
lesson that God teaches Ezekiel is the importance of preaching
the gospel to dead sinners. Now, if you know a preacher,
I dare you to ask him, does he preach to dead sinners? I think
I know what the answer will be. Oh no, the people that go where
I preach are good people. I mean, they're too good because
it ain't even true. The only good people on this
earth are people that God in Christ
Jesus, through His blood, His righteousness, His crucifixion,
His death, His burial and His resurrection and ascension, is
because God has created us in that state in His Son, our Savior,
Jesus Christ. That's the only way. There's
no other hope. None whatsoever. You can be the
best person that everybody in the community can tell you how
wonderful you are. But that's not God's view. That's
not the true thing about ourselves. We're all sinners. And if you
don't know that, you cannot understand what I'm speaking about this
morning. Our Lord commands us to preach
the gospel to sinners. How about turning to Mark chapter
16? the very end of his gospel, and verses 15 and 16. Mark 16,
verses 15 and 16. And he said unto them, the Lord
said to his disciples, Go you into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. I could make some remarks on
that, but I'll save that for another time. Verse 16, He that
believes and is baptized shall be saved. Oh preacher, look there,
you have to be baptized to be saved. Wait, wait, wait. You
quit reading too quick. Read another phrase and you'll
know that's not what it says. But he that believes not shall
be damned. He can be baptized until every
frog in the creek knows his name. But that ain't going to do him
any good. He that believes not shall be
damned." Where does the crux of the matter
lie? It's dead center on believing. Now, how can a person without
faith believe? It's impossible. Now, I'll give you a gospel statement
right beside that one. that needs careful consideration.
If I can think of what I was saying,
I will do that. It has left me. I hope it will
come back. I wanted to make that connection. Faith is not something that we
produce. Faith is a gift of God. So to possess faith is to possess
Christ, because Christ is that faith. Faith is His work in us,
and it is deposited We receive it when we're born again. So without Christ, we have no hope. Therefore, Christ is said to
be our hope. Our hope. The message that Ezekiel preached
was not something for the bones to do. Now, it looks comical
to say that, to imagine this valley full of dry bones. But
it's certainly not comical when people tell, when preachers tell
people under their hearing that you have to do this before God
can do that. You've got to take the first
step and then God will take the second and all such Tommy Roddy's
death. And there's no biblical basis
anywhere for any of it. But we love it because it exalts
the flesh. This message that Ezekiel was
to preach was to preach what God would do. Not what man must
do. What God must do. Look at verses 5 and 6 if you're
back in Ezekiel. If not, it'll be alright, and
I'll read it to you. And I'll lay sinews upon you,
and I'll 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. Guess what? Saving faith reveals
God to us. We thought we knew Him all these
years. We did this, that, and the other in whatever church
we were in, but that had nothing to do with it. That was totally
just wasted, wasted years. Ezekiel certainly thought, and
I'm sure he did, that this statement of preaching the gospel to these
bones, he must have thought of it as a strange and unusual command. I mean, if you'd have just told
your neighbor about it, they'd have latched you out of the driveway
or out of the house. That's ridiculous. telling you to preach to dead
bones? Yes, that is exactly what it
says. Did I read all the way through
verse 6? Yes, I believe I did. So when it comes to this precious
work of preaching to dead sinners, We preach what Christ has done,
not what they must do or begin to do. We preach what Christ
is still doing. This is Him at work in the book
of Ezekiel and in every other book of scripture, for that matter,
even Old as well as New Testaments. Our Lord said to Ezekiel, Behold,
I'll cause breath to enter you, I'll lay sinews upon you, I'll
put flesh on you, I'll cover you with skin, and I'll put breath
in you. We preach what Christ will do. This is my last page of notes,
and it's just about a half a page. I'm looking at verse 10 in Ezekiel
37. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came unto them, into them, and they lived
and stood upon their feet an exceeding great army. The power of God gives them life. The Spirit of God gives them
breath. And so we live. Have we learned our lesson from
this passage of Scripture? The condition of men by nature? As far as I can tell, with only
one exception, every person who has ever lived on this planet,
every one of them, is descended from Adam. The only exception to that is
that the Lord Jesus is born without the aid of a man. Had he been Had he been born of the
seed of a man, he'd be in the same boat as all of us. Lost,
doomed, damned, dying sinners. But in order to be our Savior,
he must have a perfect humanity. Because it is fused in him to
perfect deity. And that union is forever and
ever. When it comes to the lost, when
it comes to lost people, when it comes to the gospel, the question
of questions is, can these bones live? And the only possible answer
is, If God intervenes, if Christ comes and gives this person life, if
the Spirit of God comes and gives life to dead sinners, then they
live. And when that question is asked,
and sometimes by people who do not want to compliment you, they're
trying to trap you. If they say, can these bones
live? Give them the Bible answer, which
is what? God knows. I don't. Well, preacher, I have premonitions. Well, I don't care what you call
them, I don't believe them. We cannot read a person's soul. Man is so adept at keeping us
from seeing where we really are. Lord, we practice deceit in regard
to our own selves. What about the method when it
comes to this matter of preaching this word? Well, that method
is pretty simple. It is to preach Christ and Christ
alone. That's the whole thing. And then the results. Men live
by God's grace, by his mercy, and by his power. So verse 10
concludes, So I prophesied as he commanded, and the breath came into them,
and they and stood up upon their feet
an exceeding great army." Now, I'm trying to tell you that this
is how God raises dead sinners to life. This is His business,
and as long as this world stands, this work will continue. And
be sure to remind ourselves of this one thing. If the only thing that God is
doing in my generation is what I see and what I hear and what
I know, then He ain't doing much. But I'm telling you, there are
people whom we've never heard of, whom we've never met, that
God has sent to them this same gospel, and He doesn't send it
in vain. Let us thank Him that He enabled us, I mean, me and
you. I was head over heels in religion,
and I was climbing the denominational ladder, and I didn't particularly
want anything to get in my way. But I'm telling you, when God
speaks, you can't go any further. If He wants you, He will have
you.