This morning, as you can see,
the title of my message is The Dead Made Alive. And I had this
message a while back. And what I did, I made quite
a few changes to it, added some things to it, and took some things
out. And I'm kind of approaching it
from a little different way than I did last time. And one reason
is I know that all believers have struggled one time or another
with the issue of attempting to witness the gospel to your
relatives or friends and individuals. You've attempted to witness this
gospel to them and you come away frustrated because of their unconcern
indifference and even hatred toward it at times, that message
that you delivered to them, that message that really you really loved and you thought
they would too once they heard it. Here we're telling, we need
to know this, that we're telling spiritually dead sinners, though,
to believe something that we know that they're totally unable
to believe unless God does a work, his great work in the new birth
by his spirit. But yet God commands us to go
and preach the gospel to spiritually dead sinners. In Mark 16, 15 it said, and Christ
said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,
but he that believeth not shall be damned. I want you to turn
this morning, first of all, in John 11, and I want to read a
scripture here that is a statement by our Lord on the occasion of
Lazarus' death and Christ standing before the tomb of Lazarus. In John 11 43 it says, and when
Christ had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth,
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, loose him
and let him go. Now I know, and I don't know
of a better verse of scripture here, a better picture and type,
whereby we can see the condition of being dead. And this state
and condition that grace meets, that the gospel meets, because
Lazarus here is commanded to do what he can't do. And the
reason he can't do it of himself is because he's dead. And in
the gospel, all men and women by nature, as we're born into
this world, natural birth, are commanded to do what they can't
do, and that is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
reason that they cannot do this is because all men by nature
are spiritually dead. That is the state that the Bible
describes all men and women by nature as born of Adam. So there
goes on this debate, whereby said against each other, on the
one hand, you've got God's sovereignty. and on the other hand, man's
responsibility. But we have to be careful when
we talk about man's responsibility lest we forget that there really
is no ability in man's responsibility as it relates to man making spiritual
decisions by nature. Just because man is responsible
to God and responsible to obey and responsible to do these things,
That does not mean automatically that he has this necessary ability,
and that is why salvation has to be all of grace and not of
works. That's why salvation has to be
all of the Lord, and that's why it has to be all by God's saving
power, because if you look back in John 6, our Lord made two
statements that show the absolute deadness and inability of a sinner. to do anything positive toward
God. Here in John 6, 44, it states
this matter of inability. Christ says, no man can. Now,
there's a difference between may and can. May having to do
with permission to do something, and can having to do with the
ability to do something. In verse 44, it says, no man
can come to me. This is Christ speaking. except
the Father which has sent me draw him. And I'll raise him
up at the last day. And after he says these things,
no man can come to me, in this section of scripture, some of
the Pharisees immediately murmur, because Christ said that he was
the bread of life that came down from heaven. And by their murmuring
and unbelief, they demonstrated just the very thing that Christ
had stated back in verse 44. So he goes on just a little bit
later and he restates, no man can. Again in verse 65 here,
he says, and Christ said, therefore, therefore said I unto you that
no man can come to me except it were given unto him of my
father. And you would think that these
statements, as well as some others, were not even in the Bibles of
most religious people today. Christ simply said, no man can,
of himself, by himself, come unto me or believe on me. So why does God command men and
women to do what they can't do by nature? A lot of reasons, so many reasons
I'm sure. A number of reasons and so many
more that God has not revealed to us. I believe that one of
the reasons is to show us our helplessness and our inability
to do the least thing in saving ourselves. God also does it to
show us his power. God also does it to show all
men and women and it will show him at the judgment, the exceedingly
sinfulness of sin, and how that sin and selfishness, the selfishness
of sin, causes all men by nature to exalt himself and not God
in salvation. He does those things which bring
glory to him and him alone, and he does it, as Scripture says,
to magnify and glorify his free grace. to show us that salvation
must be all of God's free grace. And he does it to show us that
he's God and he alone makes the difference between saved and
lost. Men say God loves everybody. They follow that when Christ
died for everybody. Then they follow that with the
Holy Spirit trying to save everybody. So the difference in salvation
according to this kind of thinking this kind of teaching, is if
God has done all he can do, that would leave the difference in
salvation in your hands, or my hand, or other rebel sinners'
hands, such as we are by nature. But God makes these statements,
as we have in John 6, and he says these things to show us
our helplessness and to show us that it's God alone that makes
the difference in salvation. Paul said to those believers
in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7, For who maketh thee to differ
from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? You received everything from
God. Now, if thou didst receive it, if you received it, why dost
thou glory as if thou hast not received it? If you don't have
anything except God alone, If you don't have anything except
what God alone gave you, if you cannot attribute your salvation
to anybody but God and Christ alone, that means that you and
I can only make our boast in the Lord. We do not believe that
God purposed to save every person without exception. But we do
believe, as the scripture commands us and as God has directed us,
that as far as we are enabled to do, We're to preach this gospel
to every creature. We do that because God commands
it. We do it because God gets the glory in the preaching of
his son. And we do not believe that any sinner is born again
without and separate from the gospel being preached. That's
because the object of that faith that's in that gospel, that identifies
Christ, that God gives in a new birth, The object of that faith
that is revealed in the gospel is the Lord Jesus Christ, looking
to Him alone for salvation. Now, we also do not believe that
just because the gospel is preached that men and women will believe
it. And we, all believers, know that. We've seen it. We've experienced
it. Look at how many of your family
members and friends and just people in general that we've
told this true gospel to, and we've seen them rejected. And
like I said, even get mad at you, and even tell you, we won't
talk anymore about this. When we hear these things, as
a believer, it's hard to understand and believe in a way that people
would say something like that. knowing that good news that we
hear in this gospel. We know that the gospel that's
preached must be attended by divine power. You must be born
again, as Christ told Nicodemus. The gospel goes out as it is
proclaimed in this world, and I'm talking about the true gospel,
not a false gospel. I'm talking about the gospel
wherein the righteousness of God is revealed declared, made
manifest, but that gospel is truly preached as it might be.
And I do pray it be more clearly preached. We do everything we
can to try to make it as clear as we can. But if God does not
send his spirit to regenerate and give spiritual life to that
sinner, that gospel will fall on the ears and in the minds
and hearts of all who are of themselves still spiritually
dead. God must make his elect willing
in the day of his power. When Christ came to Lazarus,
spoken of in 1143, he was dead and he could not do on his own
what was commanded by Christ to do, but he did it. Our Lord
spoke to this man who had been dead so long that even his sister
said in John 11, 39, Jesus said, take ye away the stone. Martha,
his sister, the sister of him that was dead, said unto him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he had been dead for four
days. And how it must have seemed foolish to them for Christ to
stand before Lazarus' very tomb, this man dead, and saying to
him, Lazarus, come forth. You see, when God speaks to his
people, it's a very personal and factual call, he said Lazarus. And when God speaks to a sinner
through the gospel, and by that all-knowing, all-wise, and almighty
Holy Spirit, when he speaks to us, there's no mistake about
who he's talking to. We cannot in any working or doing
or whatever it is, Nothing can drown out the sound of the Spirit
of God speaking to our hearts through the preached gospel.
There is a saying that we may run, but we can't hide. Well,
that's surely the case when God calls his elect to himself in
the new birth sitting on the gospel. So he speaks factually,
Christ does to Lazarus. And Lazarus could not do on his
own what he was commanded to do, but he did because the command
was attended by divine power. If you look back in verse 26,
and this is what our Lord said to Martha, he says in verse 26,
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die, believeth
thou this. You look at that verse and tell
me what the order is. Religion says if you will believe,
you'll live. But that would be like saying
to a dead person, left to themselves, if you believe or if you just
move your hand up and wave your finger or something, you'll be
made alive. No, it says whosoever lives.
God must make a life. by His Spirit before you will
believe the true gospel. Once again, Christ speaking to
Nicodemus in John 3.3, Jesus answered and said to him, verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man is born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. To see and hear is with the eyes
of God-given faith. Look into Christ, the author
and the finisher of our salvation. We must become aware of the true
God and the true Christ of scripture. Once God imparts life by his
spirit, he makes us aware of these things through the preaching
of the gospel. This spiritual life that God
gives must precede or come before God-given faith. because God-given
faith is the evidence of life. When a baby is born, we don't
expect that baby to cry in order to have life. We rejoice when
it cries because by that cry, we know it has life, and that's
the way it is with faith. When a person is brought to forsake
all others' hopes and to cease from their own works of righteousness,
which is called dead works in scripture, and believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, when we find an individual who believes and
trusts in the blood and righteousness of Christ alone and forsakes
all else, we rejoice, just like we do when our child is born. We know that these evidences
are signs of spiritual life and that the Spirit of God has attended
the gospel. I'm sure a lot of you can Maybe
remember some of your children that have come to the gospel
and what a blessing it is when they give evidence of that life
that God's given them. When God makes alive all believers
do something that by nature none of us would do. And that is to
look outside of ourself and to look to the one who we had never
seen before. and we rejoice in him and trust
our whole salvation and eternity in him, this one that because
of our deadness and blindness, we've never seen before. I like the saying that we side
with God against ourself. Now, how could that be? Even in being in religion so
many years, we come to a point that we find out we really didn't
know the true God and true Christ of Scripture. It was another
Jesus that we'd worship all our life. We didn't see it though. Well, it's because of the Spirit
of God not only commands us, but enables us in that command
to do what we otherwise could and would not do. You see, unless
God imparts life by His Spirit, we by nature will not turn loose
of our own works of righteousness, and we
won't turn loose of having sole control of our destiny. I know
way back then when I first started here and just a little bit, about
true doctrine, even the phrase justification by faith and not
by works. I said to myself, I remember
we were in a Bible study in a false religion, but I said to myself
when I heard that, I seen in it that God was going to save
me and it was not by works at all. I seen that much. But I
said to myself, I know that God won't save me unless I do something.
That was my attitude at that point. You see, at that time,
I was still hanging on to my works for salvation. Even though I'd tell you that
it was all of Christ, I'd tell you that, I still thought that
my salvation was all of Christ. Turn over to Matthew 9, this
is another occasion of one of the miracles of Christ. Christ
says to those standing around this paralyzed man, this man
sick of the palsy, Christ says, Matthew 9, 5, for whether it
is easier to say, thy sin be forgiven, or to say, arise and
walk, but that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on
earth to forgive sin, then saith he to the sick of the palsy,
arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.' And he arose
and departed to his house, this paralyzed man. Now this man,
because of his physical condition and his disability here, with
the palsy, could not do what Christ had commanded of himself. It would be like me or you walking
in some hospital and there in one of the rooms lay a paralyzed
man from the neck down. And you say to him, you get up,
get out of your bed, take up your bed, and go home to your
house. Well, this man with a pulse, he couldn't do that. He was paralyzed,
but when Christ commanded him and joined that command with
that power, he arose and departed to his house. You see, God alone
has absolute power, and when he commands, he has the power
to overcome all obstacles in order to make it happen. This
man with a palsy was commanded by Christ to do what he was unable
to do, but he did it. And why did he did it? Because
of who it was that gave the command. Now turn over to Luke's gospel,
chapter seven, And this is an occasion when a funeral procession
was passed in our Lord. It says, now when he, or when
Christ, came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was
a dead man carried out, the other son of his mother, the only son
of his mother, and she was a widow. And much people of the city was
with her. And when the Lord saw her, he
had compassion on her, and said unto her, weep not, And he came
and touched the beer, which is the frame on which the coffins
sit. And they that bear him stood
still. And he said, young man, I say
unto thee, arise. And a lot of people, because
they have only eyes of the flesh, they are impressed by the miraculous
things that Christ did while on this earth. And they say,
well, he raised people from the dead. And he did. But there's nothing to compare
with the power and the glory of that event when God raises
a dead sinner to spiritual life. Now, that's a miracle of grace.
You must be born again, Christ said. And then it says in Luke
7, 15, and he that was dead set up and began to speak. He was
commanded to do what he, like Lazarus, was unable to do, but
he did it. And his inability did not alter
or diminish Christ's ability. We need to always understand
that as we preach the gospel, we call upon people to do what
they cannot do of themselves. By nature, they cannot and will
not come to the true God of the Bible, because we're all born
with a natural enmity. in our hearts toward everything
about God and his truth. Scripture's clear on that. Webster
defines this enmity as hatred or ill will. Christ, who is life
himself, told the Pharisees in John 540, you will not come to
me that you might have life. That verse alone shows the foolishness
of a sinner's so-called free will. Christ himself said, you
will not come to me that you might have life. Now, God told
Adam back in Genesis 2.17, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. This is a fact,
all men born of Adam are of themselves spiritually dead. Now they began
the physical death at that time, but they also spiritually died. You saw it when Adam and Eve
went and hid from God, and they covered their nakedness, their
guilt, with fig leaf aprons. Now this is a fact, all men born
of Adam are of themselves spiritually dead. And we all died in Adam
and only believers are made alive in Christ. As a matter of fact,
all the miracles that Christ performed in the gospel accounts
were given as examples to show the spiritual condition of the
sinner. Spiritually dead, spiritually deaf, spiritually blind, spiritually
paralyzed, and spiritually putrefied. But we preach as commanded, and
we preach what is commanded, knowing that we have no power
of ourself, knowing that the most talented preacher, the most
learned preacher, the most gifted preacher, as far as the ability
to define and explain the gospel, it'll all be in vain if the power
is ours alone. The one that gives ability is
in the power of God alone. Salvation is of the Lord. God will attend the gospel with
power to every one of his elect, his sheep, because he said, my
sheep hear my voice and they follow me. If they're in this
awful condition, if they are by nature unwilling, If they
are unable of themselves to do any of these things, even what
men say is the most simple thing, and that is to believe on Christ. Know this, that God says in His
Word in Psalm 110 verse 3, thy people shall be willing in the
day of thy power. God's able to make His people
willing in His own time by His Spirit. Let me show you one more
passage here. that you're familiar with is
found in Ezekiel 37. Because here's another picture
long before Christ came, the same situation with the prophet
Ezekiel and a vision that he had. This has a physical application
of the prophecy of the Jews returning from captivity to their own land
and of the union of the tribes, one with another, and of the
glorious kingdom of Christ among them. Their restoration is represented
by a vision of dry bones made alive. The place in which they
were, the condition they were in, and the manner in which they
were made alive. But this morning I'm going to
mainly deal with these particular scriptures here with the spiritual
application. Scripture says in Ezekiel 37
verse 1, the hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out
carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord and sent me down
in the midst of a valley which was full of dry bones. Every
gospel preacher that has ever stood to preach the true gospel
has stood just like old Ezekiel. All God called preachers stand
in front of a valley of spiritually dry bones. And then it says in
verse 2, and caused me to pass by them round about And behold,
there were many, very many in that open valley, and lo, they
were very dry. They'd been dead a long time.
Then Ezekiel says in verse 3, And he said unto me, Son of man,
can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, knowest
thou, thou knowest. It seemed as though Ezekiel was
saying, Lord, if it depended on me, they can't. But you know.
Then in verse 4, again he said unto me, prophesy upon these
bones, preach, declare my message upon these bones, and say unto
them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Well, they
can't hear. They've been dead a long time. You're preaching to a graveyard.
Ezekiel. Then God says in verse 5, 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 what's
going to be the evidence that he's made them alive? It says,
and you shall know that I am the Lord. And then Ezekiel says
in the beginning of 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 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. In scripture,
the wind is symbolic of the Holy Spirit that gives life to a spiritually
dead person. In verse 10, Ezekiel says, so
I prophesied as he commanded, as God commanded me, and the
breath came unto them, and they lived, and stood up upon their
feet an exceeding great army. These dry bones did what they
couldn't do of themselves. They did what Ezekiel couldn't
do for them. He issued the command of God that God give him, declared
the message God put in his heart, and mine, and that was the word
of the Lord. He preached it to a bunch of
dead folks, and the Spirit of God made them alive. And they
acknowledged Christ as the Lord. Because it says at the end of
verse 6, and you shall know that I am the Lord. The evidence of
spiritual life is God-given faith that acknowledges Christ as Lord
and a Savior. Now, these things ought to encourage
us as believers going through this life. I know a lot of us
as young believers, we have that zeal. We come to a message that's
so good news to us. And we get out
there with our family and friends and so forth, and we want to
tell them this message because it's good news. And even though
we know God has to do it, I desire that they be saved. We know that
this is their only way, only hope of salvation. And so we
tell them, and sometimes we go a little too far. We're trying
to, and we call it, we're just trying to make it clear, clear
and clear. And we need to do that. But at
the same time, we need to understand that all men by nature are spiritually
dead. that we must be born again and
God commands us to preach this gospel and he's going to bring
his elect to the point where they hear it and that they believe
it through the new birth, through his Holy Spirit. These things
ought to encourage us, those of us who stand up here to deliver
these messages, those of us as believers who witness to friends
and co-workers and such, this just don't have to do with a
preacher that stands up front. It has to do with all of us,
all believers, as we witness the gospel, the individual who
bear witness of the gospel. And concerning our families,
I've decided that, boy, that's one area that the Lord shows
us our greatest weakness. An inability to help a sinner
the most is in our families. As long as they have life, physical
life, there's always hope.