If your Bible's open there to
Ezekiel chapter 37, that'll be our text this morning. I've titled the message, Can
These Bones Live? And our text this morning gives
us a picture of how it is that Almighty God is pleased to give
spiritual life to his people. There's a prophecy here. First,
in order of time, There's a prophecy how the Lord is going to deliver
Israel from bondage in Babylon. He's going to bring them back
to Israel. There is a prophecy concerning the resurrection of
the dead when the Lord returns. But primarily this text is given
to us to teach us how it is God's pleased to give spiritual life
to his people. And that's where I want to dwell
this morning. Now, if we're gonna look at how
God gives spiritual life to his people by his grace, I think
it would be a good idea for us to start with our deadness. How
is it we got dead in the first place? So the first thing that
the Lord shows Ezekiel here is man is dead in sin. Verse one
of Ezekiel chapter 37. 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 a valley which was full of bones. and
caused me to pass by round about them, and behold, there were
very many in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. Now
this valley was full of dry bones. There had been a great military
battle here at one time many years ago, and many men had died. Now, this had been so long ago,
when Ezekiel looked out over the scene of this battle, there
weren't bodies lying around, there were just bones. And the
bones weren't even together like skeletons. They were just scattered
everywhere. You know, I reckon animals had
come and eaten the flesh and drug the bones all over the place.
I mean, there was no order to this thing, just complete chaos,
just piles of bones everywhere. The point of all that is this.
When Ezekiel looked out at this valley of dry bones, this is
what he saw. All hope of life is gone. These bones were very
dry. They've been scorched by the
sun. They've been bleached white by the sun. All hope of life
is gone. Now, all of that is a picture
of you and me by nature, all of Adam's race. In the garden,
our father Adam fought a battle and he miserably lost. Adam was
in a battle with sin, tempted by sin, and there was a very
great slaughter. It's not just that an army died.
A whole race died. All of Adam's race died. Hold
your finger there, look over Romans chapter five. A whole
race died when Adam lost this battle. Romans chapter five, verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, Adam,
Sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned. And literally translated,
you'll see in your, if you've got a center reference there,
in whom all have sinned. We all sinned and died in Adam. You know, the soldiers in this
army that Isaiah saw there, they were slain by the enemy. Now
again, that's a picture of us. We were slain by the enemy. Our
sins killed us. And it's a horrible sight. And
if God gives us any eyes at all to see our condition, our dead,
vile condition by nature, it's a horrible sight. And I'm not
just here trying to dwell on all men by nature. I'm preaching
you and me. This is my condition. By nature,
it's my condition. Your condition, by nature, we're
dead. Now, dead is dead. You can't bring somebody back
from the dead. If they died, I don't care how
long ago it is that they died, you can't bring them back to
life. Now, I know their heart might stop and we can restart
their heart, you know, we say, well, they died and we brought
them back, but not really. When a person dies, God takes
the spirit out of that body. And once God takes the spirit
out of their body, there's no giving that body life again.
It's dead. If it's just been a short time
or if it's been many years, They're dead. Now spiritually speaking,
you and I have been dead for a long time, over 6,000 years. We've been dead. And all hope
of life is gone. We're just very dry, dead bones. There's no life in us, and there's
no hope of us creating life, spiritual life in ourselves.
We're dead. But here's the second thing God
showed his disciple. God gives spiritual life to his people
by his grace and his mercy. He's so kind and he gives spiritual
life to his people and he does it by doing what we're doing
right now, the preaching of God's word. Verse four says, again,
he said unto me, prophesy, preach unto these bones and say unto
them, oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 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. So I prophesied, I preached as
I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was
a noise. And behold, a shaking, and the
bones came together, bone to his bones. Suddenly all those
piles of bones became skeletons. And I beheld, lo, the sinews
in the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above,
but there was no breath in them. Now God has commanded us to preach.
Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Go everywhere you
have opportunity and preach Christ. Because wherever you go, whoever
you find, that's what they need. We need to hear Christ preach.
And God has commanded us to preach a specific message. Don't just
go out there do religious mumbo-jumbo and have a religious looking
service that impresses the flesh. God's given us a specific message
to preach. It's Christ. Christ and Him crucified. Our message is Christ. As He's
declared in this book. We don't preach Christ as we
imagine Him to be. We don't preach Christ as men
would like Him to be. We preach Christ as God has been
pleased to reveal him in his word. This is the commandment. In verse four he says, prophesy
unto these dry bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear
the word of the Lord. This is what we're commanded
to preach, the word of the Lord. This word is our only message. And every line of this book declares
Christ. If someone's a preacher and they
would preach, it's been determined, this is the Sunday, this is the
Wednesday that they would preach. And they look in God's word and
they see a passage of scripture and they don't see Christ in
it, don't preach from it. Because you don't see the message
yet. Our job is to take this book and say, here's Christ.
Now you look to him. You believe him. You rest in
him. And we're to do it as plainly as we possibly can. Isaiah, or
Ezekiel, excuse me, is preaching to dead bones. You think those
dead bones are gonna be impressed if he uses big words and deep
theological meanings? You think those dry bones, those
dead bones are gonna be impressed by that? I believe if you're
gonna preach to dry, dead bones, the thing to do is be as simple
as possible, don't you reckon? That's the way we're to preach.
And there's a couple of things about the gospel here. Number
one is this. The gospel's for sinners. We
have good news for helpless, hopeless sinners. Ezekiel was
to preach as God commanded him to those dry, dead bones. That's
a picture of us sinners. Now, if you're here this morning
and you don't see yourself as dead, in your sin, that I'm afraid
I don't have good news for you. I'll pray God show you you're
dead in your sin, so I will have good news for you, but if you're
not a dead sinner, if you're not guilty, you're not hopeless,
if you see yourself as having any hope of being able to generate
some life and generate some pleasure from God, then the gospel message
is not for you. But my dear friends, If you're
a sinner and you feel like I've got no hope, I'm so low down,
I'm so far from God, there's no reason at all that God would
ever look at me and smile. I mean, I'm despicable in my
own eyes. How low down am I in God's eyes?
There's no hope for me. Oh, if that's the way you feel,
I've got good news for you. Look here at verse 11. Then he
said unto me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel. Behold, they say our bones are dried and our hope
is lost. We're cut off for our parts.
If you feel like you're these dried dead bones and you're cut
off from the Lord, if you feel your spiritual deadness that
way, I mean, I'm cut off. Then the gospel that we preach
is a gospel of life to you. You know, our experience of salvation
begins with feeling our deadness. Our experience of salvation begins
right here. I'm in deep trouble. I mean,
I'm in trouble. There's a song I love. Isaac sings it for us. A poor
sinner like me. It begins this way. I was once
far away from the Savior. As vile as a sinner could be,
And I wondered if Christ the Redeemer would save a poor sinner
like me. I was wandering on in the darkness.
Not a ray of light could I see. And the thought filled my heart
with sadness. There's no hope for a sinner
like me. Now if God brought you to feel
that way, I pray so. Even though I know it's miserable.
It's the most miserable feeling in this world. There's no hope
for a sinner like me. The gospel of Christ is a message
for you. The gospel is for sinners. It's
forgiveness of sin. What did Christ come to do? He
came to save sinners. Are you a sinner? I've got a
message of salvation and forgiveness for you. It's in Christ. And
second, the message of the gospel is this. Salvation is of the
Lord. How many times did we read in
just these verses? I will and you shall. I will, and you shall. The gospel
is all what the Lord has been pleased to do for his people.
And nowhere in this book, not on one page, will you find that
a sinner ever contributed one blessed thing to their salvation.
Not one. It's all the Lord said, I will. And you shall because I will.
You shall because I'll put it into. The message of the gospel
is this is what God's done for sinners in Christ. You're dry,
dead bones, and I'm gonna put life in you. I'm gonna put breath
in you. I'm gonna give you life from
within. Just like when God created Adam
out of the dust, and he formed that body, and God breathed into
Adam. He became a living soul. God
breathes spiritual life into his people, and they live spiritually. And this life, it's all Christ. It's all not just what He's done,
it's all Him. Look here at verse six. He says,
I will lay sinews upon you. Those sinews are the tendons
that hold the bones together. That's Christ. He holds everything
together. Paul said in Colossians 1 verse
17, Christ is before all things, and by Him, all things consist. Everything's held together by
Him. Now, that's true in the natural
world, but boy, that's especially true of the spiritual man. We're
held together by Christ. We're bound to Christ by Him,
by His power. And He says, I'll bring up flesh
upon you. And that word flesh means a body.
I'm going to bring a spiritual body, a spiritual nature upon
you. I'm going to make you a brand
new person in the new birth. I'm going to make you born in
the image of Christ. And He says, I'll cover you with
skin. I'm going to give you a covering. And you know the covering of
God's people? It's Christ, isn't it? The righteousness of Christ. In verse 12, He says, Now therefore
prophesy, preach, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God,
Behold all my people, I will open your graves and cause you
to come up out of your graves and will bring you into the land
of Israel. See, God says I will and you
shall. I will do this and you shall
live. I'm going to bring you up out of your grave, so you're
going to come up out. Spiritually speaking, I'm going
to bring you up out of your deadness, your spiritual deadness. I'm
going to give you spiritual resurrection. And when I do this, this is what
you're going to know. This is what every person God
saves knows. God did it. He did it. I didn't deserve it. He did it
anyway. I didn't do anything to help him. God did it all. Salvation is of the Lord. That's
the gospel that God's commanded us to preach. Now I said this earlier. If we're
going to talk about how it is that God's pleased to give spiritual
life to his people, we should start with how we got dead in
the first place. But do you know the gospel starts
before that? We're going to preach the gospel at some point, We
gotta get back to the very beginning. Where's the beginning? In the
beginning, God. In the beginning, that's when
God was pleased to purpose salvation for his people, long before he
created anything. Just like this story. At the
time that Ezekiel was prophet in Israel, Israel was in bondage
in Babylon. And long before Israel, ever
went into Babylon in the first place, God purposed how he was
gonna bring them out of their captivity. He purposed this before
they even went into captivity. Look back in chapter 36, this
is why I read this to open the service this morning, verse 24.
For I will take you from among the heathen, 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. I will take away the stony heart
out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of flesh. And I'll
put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues,
and you shall keep my judgments and do them. And you shall dwell
in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my
people, and I will be your God. Now this is what God purposed
to do before Israel ever went into captivity in Babylon. He
purposed how he was going to bring them out, when he was going
to bring them out, and when he was going to bring them back
into their own country. And he did it way before Israel ever
went into captivity in Babylon. And you know why God determined
to do it? So he'd be glorified. Did you
see that in verse 22? I do not this for your sakes,
O house of Israel, but for my holy namesake. Verse 23, I will
sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen,
where are you in? I'm gonna do this for the glory
of my name. Now all this, God bringing his
people out of captivity in Babylon, it's a picture of how God's gonna
save his people from their sin. Do you know God purposed redemption
for his people long before Adam ever fell in the garden? When
Adam fell in the garden, there was already a savior for God's
elect. Long before Adam ever made us
guilty, God purposed righteousness and justification for his people
in his son. God's purpose all along was to
give glory to his name by saving his people through the doing,
through the obedience, through the life, and through the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ has done it. That's
what He has done for His people. This thing of salvation and righteousness
and justification and eternal life, it's done. Christ said
it's finished. He's done it. You know how God
lets His people in on what He's done for them? Through the preaching
of Christ. He lets us in and tells us what
He's done for us. The gospel says we've sold ourselves
under sin, but Christ gives His people life. by suffering and
dying in their place, taking the death, taking the punishment
that they deserve so that they can live. The death of Christ
as a substitute for his people, it satisfied God's justice. There'd
been death for sin. Now his people can live because
the substitute died for us. The gospel says we've made ourselves
unrighteous by our own disobedience. Adam didn't do it to me, I did
it. I did, I sinned in him. and God's
never gonna accept me in my rise of righteousness. God's not gonna
accept the best I can do. God will only accept the best
he can do. God will only accept perfection. Well, I can't attain
that, can you? Of course not. So Christ came
in the flesh to make his people righteous by his obedience to
the law. See, we were made unrighteous
by Adam's disobedience, weren't we? God's elect are made righteous
by Christ's obedience. by another representative man.
Now you trust him. He's your righteousness. He's
all you need. You trust him. That's the whole
commandment of the gospel. That's the commandment of this
whole book. Trust Christ. Now you believe him. That's the
message we preach. He's enough to save even you. He surely is. All right, here's
the third thing. God, the Holy Spirit, does a
supernatural, life-giving work in the new birth. In verse three,
the Lord said unto Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. Can these bones live? Well, if
it's up to them, they can. And if it's up to me, they can.
But Lord, you know, if you do the work they can live, Now,
Ezekiel, later on, just after this, in verse eight, he preached.
And the bones came together. Sinews came up on the bones to
hold them together. Flesh came up, skin covered them.
And there they lay, a body. They looked like bodies. You
could see them, their bodies formed. But there was no life
in them. There's no breath in them. There's
no faith in them. You know, I liken that to a person
who hears the gospel. And boy, this is new. I've never
heard this before. And boy, they see. Sure enough, that's what
that says. Sure enough, that's what God's
word says. Sure enough. And they get their doctoral ducks
in a row. You know, they say, yes, I see
that. I believe that doctrine. They
got everything lined up, don't they? But there's no life in
them yet. There's no faith in them yet.
and if that person is one of God's elect, God's not gonna
leave them in that dead condition. He's gonna give them life. He's
gonna cause them to be born again. That's what he tells Ezekiel
here in verse nine. Now, all this flesh and here's
all these bodies laying there. In verse nine, then said he unto
me, prophesy unto the wind. I believe he's talking there
about prayer. Prophesy unto the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and
say unto the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, come from the four
winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may
live. 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. Now earlier, Ezekiel
preached to a bunch of dry dead bones. I've often wondered, I mean,
Ezekiel preached as God commanded him to preach, right? But do
you reckon he felt a little silly? I mean, here's all these dry,
dead bones. He's preaching to them and telling
them to do something they can't do. He's telling them, hear the
word of the Lord. When they didn't have ears, their
ears are gone. They can't hear. How on earth
are they ever going to hear? It's the same situation I find
myself in every week. In a crowd this size. Now there's some believers. Oh,
there's some folks, they trust Christ. They have faith in Christ.
They feed upon this word. There's some babes in Christ.
Some young men, young women in Christ. Some old men, old women
in Christ. And there's some dry dead bones
that just do not believe and cannot hear. And our commandment is, preach
Christ to them. To all those people. Believer,
babe, young and old. Unbeliever, preach all the same
message to them. Preach Christ to them and tell
them to hear the word of the Lord. Now can you please tell
me how the dead are gonna hear? How can the spiritually dead
ever hear? God the Holy Spirit's gonna make them hear, that's
how. We don't have to do it. The Spirit will make them hear.
And as Ezekiel did what God commanded him to do, he preached to those
dead bodies the wind of the Holy Spirit blew and gave them life,
breathed the breath of life into them. They stood up an exceeding
great army. Now, does that sound at all familiar
to you? It should. Look over John chapter
three. Our Lord gave his New Testament commentary on this
as he was talking with Nicodemus in John chapter three. There was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus
by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto
him, I love this, you know, Nicodemus is coming, just blowing smoke,
you know, up the Lord's curtain, just praising him and putting
all this praise on, The Lord completely ignores it. Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, how
can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of
the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit
is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth. It blows where it wants to. And
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one that's born of
the Spirit. The Holy Spirit blows where he
will. He blows where he pleases. And
the Holy Spirit gives brand new life, spiritual life that was
not there before. There's a new nature born that
was not there before. The Holy Spirit causes a nature
to be born in God's people that's holy, that's righteous, and can
never sin. Now when the Spirit blows like
that, the flesh is the same as it ever was. The flesh is unchanged.
The flesh is just as sinful and dead and rotten as it ever was.
But there's a new man born that was not there before. That's
when the warfare begins between the flesh and the spirit. Did
you catch what the Lord said there in verse six? That which
is born of the flesh is flesh. That's all it ever will be. That's
all it ever can be. Dead, sinful, rotten flesh. And that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. It's holy and righteous. and
can never sin. Now that new birth, that's a
supernatural work. It's not a work that the flesh
can understand. It's not a work that the flesh
can enter into. It's a supernatural work. And
that seems like the most impossible thing in this world to explain,
doesn't it? How can you be a sinner and all you ever do is sin But
at the same time, you've got a holy nature that can't sin.
You can't explain it, can you? But if you've experienced it,
you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? Look at 2 Corinthians
5. 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. The word is creation. He's a
brand new creation. Old things are passed away and
behold, all things are become new. There's a new creation born
of the Holy Spirit. Now you can't see it. You can't
lay your finger on it and you can't explain it. It's a supernatural
work, isn't it? But that's what God does in the
hearts of his people. And if you look over first Peter
chapter one, I'll show you how he did it. It's by just what
Ezekiel did there at the Valley of Dry Bones. He preached. He
preached the word of the Lord. 1 Peter 1, verse 23. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, not of the seed that you were born with the first time,
but of incorruptible. by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. This word preached, that's the
seed that gives us spiritual life. It can't be the flesh,
can it? For all flesh is as grass, and
the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. The flesh is dead and dying
and won't do you any good. But the word of the Lord endureth
forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. And that's exactly what happened
when Ezekiel preached to those dry, dead bones. He preached
the word and the spirit blew and gave life. And the same thing
happens in the new birth, the one of God's elect. We keep preaching
Christ over and over and over and over and over again. God,
the Holy Spirit moves and gives life that wasn't there before.
And he always does it through the preaching of the word. Just
in this very short passage, Ezekiel shows us the whole life of one
of God's preachers. We pray and preach and pray and
preach and pray and preach and pray and preach. That's what
we do. Praying that God will bless his word and give life
to his people. Now, here's the last thing. When
those dry, dead bones are given life, now they got to be fed,
don't they? They got to be fed. How are they
going to be fed? by the same preaching of God's Word that
God used to give him life. Back in our text, Ezekiel 37
verse 11. And he saith unto me, Son of
man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they
say our bones are dried and our hope is lost. We're cut off for
our parts. Therefore prophesy, preach unto
them, and say unto them, 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 again, or bring you into the
land of Israel, and ye 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 put
my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you in
your own land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken
it, and performed it, saith the Lord. See, God's preacher just
keeps reminding people of the same message he preached to them
before. After this army stood up, an exceeding great army,
the Lord told Ezekiel to preach the exact same message He told
to preach to the dry dead bones, isn't it? It's the same message.
We just keep reminding people, salvation's of the Lord. Now
don't get so caught up in this world and everything you're doing
and start trying to trust in your own works, trying to trust
in your own morality, trying to trust in your own knowledge.
Just keep trusting Christ. Now salvation's of the Lord.
and the preservation of His people, that's up to the Lord too. And
the glorification of His people, that's of the Lord too. It's
all of the Lord. You just keep trusting Him. You
just keep looking to Him. You just keep resting in Him. You who believe, think back to
when you first started realizing that you trusted Christ. The
Lord first revealed Himself to you. Oh, that was a glorious
time, wasn't it? And you trusted Christ. You were
so glad to be able to trust Him. You trusted Him for everything,
didn't you? You trusted Him for all of your salvation. Well,
God's preacher keeps reminding us, now you continue just like
you started. You finish just like you started. Looking to
Christ. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of our faith. He's the Alpha and Omega. He's
the beginning and the last. He's everything in between. You
keep trusting Christ. You just keep trusting Him and
Him alone. God's preacher's gonna remind
us over and over and over again that we're dead in our sin. And
our only hope of life, our only hope of righteousness, our only
hope of justification, our only hope of holiness, our only hope
of preservation, it's all found in Christ alone. You know why
God's preacher keeps reminding us that we're dead? Because when
I'm reminded I'm a dead sinner, I'm forced to look to Christ.
I'm forced to look to Him. When I'm reminded there's no
hope in me, I'm forced to look to Christ. Everything we preach,
the goal is that you look to Christ, whether it's the first
time or the one millionth time. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. I said this Wednesday night,
this gospel is good to live by. It's good to live by. And I tell you what, it's good
enough to die by too. The gospel tells us this flesh
will die. We must die because of sin. And
the gospel tells us what will happen to our bodies after we
die. After we die, what happens? The
gospel tells us. The believer goes to be with
the Lord. The believer leaves this flesh,
this dead flesh here on earth, and some of our loved ones are
going to put it in the ground. But the new man has already gone
to be with the Lord, gone straight into the presence of Christ himself,
just like that thief on the cross. that the Lord said, today, today,
shalt thou be with me in paradise. That's what happened. Well, what's
gonna happen at the end? What's gonna happen at the end?
Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter four. The gospel tells us. 1 Thessalonians chapter four. Boy, this world's a tough place
to live, isn't it? I mean, it's tough. And these bodies, it's
a tough way to live, living in these sinful bodies. Well, the
gospel gives us some instruction and comfort in this matter. 1
Thessalonians 4, verse 13. But I would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep. You notice
Paul didn't say they're dead. He used the same word the Lord
used, they're asleep. I don't want you to sorrow not,
even as others which have no hope, For if we believe that
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not prevent, we won't precede them
which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with
the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we
ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another
with these words. These are the words we use to
comfort one another. Yes, our bodies are gonna die.
They surely are. But that's not the end. Almost
always, when we have a funeral, we go to the graveside I almost
always say this. This is the site of our loved
ones resurrection. This is not the end. This body
is coming out of the grave and boy, you just wait to see it
when it does. It's going to be raised in glorified flesh in
a body just like the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then
body and soul. We're going to be taken together
to be with Christ forever. Now that's how the story is.
The story began and eternity passed when the Father purposed
redemption for His people. And it's going to end with all
those people gathered together with Christ around His throne,
worshiping Him forever. That's how it's going to end.
I pray there'll be a blessing to you. That's the gospel for
the Valley of the Dry Bones. Now, if you allow me just a minute, I have a word that I would like
to say to our three graduates, Lexi and Kelsey and Allison. I always get somewhat emotional
about this. You all are starting a new chapter
in your lives. I'm excited for you. I know how
excited you are. And every single time we have
one of these dinners for our graduates, I ask myself this
question. Frank, have you been faithful
to them? Have you been faithful to preach Christ to them? I've
tried my best. I have tried my best. Girls, don't forget. Don't forget what you've been
taught here. Don't forget it. There's so much I wish I could
impart to you. And I don't, I can't do it. I
don't have the words. Whatever it would be that would
be my advice probably wouldn't be any good anyway. but I'm gonna
read something to you from God's word. This is the inscription
that I put in each one of your Bibles, from Proverbs chapter
three. My son, my daughters, forget
not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments, for length
of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not
mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them about thy neck, hang
on to them, bind them about thy neck, Write them upon the table
of thine heart. Keep them in your heart. So shalt
thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man,
both God and man. Girls, trust in the Lord with
all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
And that's my prayer for you. Now you go off and conquer the
world. and let the Lord direct your paths. Always look to Him. Alright. After we sing a closing
song, the men are going to set up some tables and we'll have
a dinner and celebrate these fine, fine young ladies. I thank
God for you. Now, you three, you got to go
first. Nobody go through that. And once
you see them three go through, then the rest of us can go through.
And girls are too polite. If I don't tell you, you won't
go. You go first and the rest of us will follow you, okay? Our Father, oh, how we thank
you for this message of Christ that you have given to us, this
message that gives life, this message that tells us how sinners
are given life, how Christ put away our sin by his precious
blood, how our Lord Jesus Christ made his people righteous by
his obedience. It's not in us, it's all in him.
Father, how we thank you. And how I pray that you'd move
in the power of thy spirit, that you'd give life to each one of
us here this morning. Let us see the glory of Christ
our Savior. And Father, I thank you for these
three young ladies that we celebrate today. We thank you for all their
accomplishments that you've enabled them to achieve so far. And Father,
wherever it is that they go next, Father, I pray you'd go with
them. Father, that you'd keep them. by your mercy and your
grace, that you'd lead them and guide them, that you'd always
keep them under the sound of your gospel. Father, we thank
you for this food that we're about to eat, pray that you'd
bless it to our bodies. And as always, we pray you'd
forgive us of our many sins. Father, it's in Christ's name,
for his glory and his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.