Okay. Um, hopefully you've, you
all have turned to Ezekiel 37 and, and, uh, if you've looked
at it at all, you know, that this is a very familiar portion
of scripture. We've all heard the story of
the valley of the dry bones. And, uh, you know, many people
look at this portion of scripture and think that it's nothing more
than a history lesson, that it's pointing to that physical nation
of Israel. That's going to become a nation
in the, in the future after it's been scattered abroad, like all
these bones scattered, that the Lord is going to bring them back
into their own land, that there will be a nation of Israel. And
that's true. You know, scripture has a bifocal
application. There's the historical part,
the flood happened, creation happened. This valley of bones
happened. And it does point to that physical
nation of Israel. In fact, Spurgeon in 1865 referred to this and said there
will be a nation of Israel. There was no sign of a nation
of Israel at that time till 1948. It became a nation again. But Spurgeon knew from looking
at the scripture that there would be a physical nation of Israel.
But we've been told and we understand and we know that the true blessing
of scripture is seeing Christ. That all scriptures point to
Christ and the nation of Israel is actually pointing to spiritual
Israel, the people of God, people that chosen for nothing, no good
in them, nothing that would merit God's favor. But because he chose
to save a people, he chose the people. And it's Psalm 106, eight
says he saved them for his namesake, that he might make his mighty
power to be known. So. Let's take a look at this
scripture. from a spiritual sense. I mean,
even when you look at that nation of Israel being, you know, the
people populating that nation come from all over the world.
That's a picture of us coming together as one body in Christ
from every kindred, tongue, nation in the world. Even that collection
of the nation of Israel. So I want to look at this, and
as I read through this, See if you can notice these seven things
that I want to kind of cover today. I want to look at the
preacher. Then I want to look at the bones. Then the question, the answer,
the importance of preaching, the message. And then finally, I want to look
at the importance of prayer and the work of the spirit. So let
me read through Ezekiel 37. I'm going to go verses 1 through
10. 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. 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? And I answered, O Lord
God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, prophesy
unto these bones and say unto them, O 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 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 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 unto the wind, Thus saith the Lord God. Come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood
upon their feet an exceeding great army. So the first thing
that I noticed, you know, as we go through this section of
scripture is the preacher. The first thing that we see is
that the hand of the Lord was on Ezekiel, God's prophet. In verse one, the hand of the
Lord was upon me and the Lord carried him out and set him down
in the midst of the valley full of bones. The Lord carried him,
put him where he decided to put him, where he had dead people
to be saved. If God's going to save a people,
he's going to send them a preacher. And as Roman 10.15 says, And
how shall they preach except they be said? God's going to
send the preacher. Turn, if you would, to Acts 8. Here we see another preacher
sent in Acts 8 verse 26. And the angel of the Lord spoke
unto Philip, saying, Arise, go toward the south unto unto the
way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And
he arose and went and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of
great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who
had charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for
the worship. He was returning, sitting in
his chariot, reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said
unto Philip, Go near, join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran
thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah. And
he said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How
can I, except some man should guide me? God's going to send
his preacher to the center, the seeking center. God's going to
send his preacher there. And, you know, we need to never take that for
granted. We've been blessed through many,
many years, generations with the gospel in this community.
And I pray that we never take that for granted, that we continue
to pray that the Lord would lift up our pastor, that he would
give him a message from God for his people. You know, the fact
that that God has raised up a pastor in this area just might mean
that there's some sheep out there, that there's some children of
God that he intends to save. And we need to continually pray
for that. And I don't want to, you know,
I don't want to have people think that we're lifting up our pastor
or putting him on a pedestal. You know, God sent a man to preach us the
gospel. We should honor that. We're not
saying that he's better than any other man. We know, we confess,
that whatever he preaches, he is fully dependent on God to
give him a message, and for God to make that word effectual.
And, you know, the question isn't, what do you think of Frank Tate? Or what do you think of Henry
Mahan? It's not, it's what thinking
of Christ, the Christ that they preach, that those men preached
to their sheep. And it's right that we should
honor them. Isaiah 52 verse seven says, how
beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth
good tidings. that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings
of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God
reigneth. God's sovereign, as a people,
God's gonna save. And we've been so blessed through
the years for men that have preached the effectual word of God to
us. Okay, so the next thing I wanna
look at back in Ezekiel is the bones. The very next thing we
see is the bones. Dry, dry bones. And this is something
that God calls a preacher. He sends him somewhere and he
shows them, shows that preacher that The people that he's preaching
to are dead. Dead, dead, as dead as you can
get. I mean, I reckon dried up bones
scattered throughout a valley is about as dead as you can get
and still recognize that the person was once alive or that
there's a human there. Other than finally going to dust,
that's as far from life as you can get. And that's what every
preacher sees. And that's what what we are. That's what we see ourselves
as being is dead, utterly dead. And without Christ. The living
word in us, we're all spiritually dead. And these bones are scattered
throughout an open valley, as I said earlier, that that represents
that God does have a people. Throughout this world. There
are people that we don't know of. There are congregations that
we have no idea are out there. God's remnant is more than our
puny brains understand. God has people. He's going to
call them home. And they'd been there a long
time. Those bones were bleached, dried. There was nothing in them at
all, scattered throughout. They died in a battle that took
place a long time ago. That's Adam, the Garden of Eden,
a battle with God, a battle to be God, to become God himself.
He lost that battle. Sin, death came upon the world. Romans 5.12. Wherefore, is by
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And
so death passed upon all men, for then all have sinned. 1 Corinthians 15.22. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. And it wasn't just the
bones, but Ezekiel says, lo, they were very dry. That dryness
of those bones is a picture of our complete inability to satisfy
the law. There's no marrow left in those
bones. It's all gone. And if any of
you remember from your high school biology classes, that marrow,
that's where the blood comes from. Blood is created in the
marrow. We have no ability to create
the blood that's required to satisfy God's justice. Bones
are very, very dry. Hebrews 9.22 says, And almost
all things by the law are purged with blood, and without shedding
of blood is no remission. Without that marrow, that dryness
of our bones, there's no hope in us producing anything that's
going to satisfy the justice of God. Our only hope to satisfy
the payment that God demands for sin is the blood of another. And that's the blood of our Lord
Jesus Christ. First, Peter one verses 19 or
verses 18 and 19 tell us. For as much as you know that
you are not redeemed with corruptible things, is it silver and gold
from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers?
But with the precious blood of Christ is a land without blemish,
without spot. We are dead, utterly dead, dry
bones. We have no hope outside the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The next thing that I wanted
to look at was the question. In verse three, we see that God
asks a vital question. And that question is, can these
bones live? Well, we've already seen that
they're as far from life as possible, utterly dead, scattered. And
to the natural man, look at those bones and the answer is obviously
no, resounding no, no. There's no way, there's no natural
way that these bones can live. Just like an Ethiopian can't
change his skin, a leper can't change his spots, The rest of
that scripture says, if they could, then may ye also do good
that are accustomed to evil. We can't do good. We're accustomed
to evil. We can't live on our own. But I want to look at another
scripture. If you turn to Luke 18 with me,
if you would. I want to look at another scripture
where there's another impossibility that Christ puts forth with the
disciples. If you look at Luke 18, and we'll
go to verse 18, we have the story of the rich young ruler. And
a certain ruler asked him, saying, good master, what shall I do
to inherit internal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why
callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that
is God. Thou knowest the commandments.
Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear
false witness, honor they father and thy mother. And he said,
that rich young ruler said, all these have I kept from my youth
up. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto them, yet
lackest thou one thing, Sell all that thou hast and distribute
it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and
come, follow me." Christ gives the commandment to be saved,
come to Christ, follow him, put all your riches aside. It's nothing
but filthy rags. The riches of your works is nothing. It cannot save you. Put them aside. And this rich
young ruler, when he heard that, When he heard this, he was very
sorrowful because he was very rich. He thought he had a righteousness
of his own. And when Jesus saw that, he was
very sorrowful and he said, How hardly shall they that have riches
enter into the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel
to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God. And they that heard it said,
who then can be saved? That's impossible. A camel cannot
go through the eye of a needle. And Christ said, the things which
are impossible with men are possible with God. So leave yourself here
at Luke 18 just for a little bit. I want to get back to this
scripture here in a little bit. But we see that outside of Christ,
there is no hope for these dry bones to live. But Ezekiel, he
doesn't rely on man's understanding. He knows where the answer can
be found. He doesn't say, no, they can't
be saved. He doesn't say, yes, I can figure
out a way to save them. No, Ezekiel's answer is, O Lord
God, thou knowest. You know, God, who you're going
to save. You know where salvation is and
pray that he would show it to us as well. So the next thing
I want to look at is the answer. What's the answer to this question
that we know that God knows the answer to? Well, the answer can
be found. In in the question, actually,
if you look at who the question was asked of. Sorry. You all stay there in Luke, but
in Ezekiel, it asked, he said unto me, son of man, can these
bones live? Who does that son of man point
to? When I see son of man, it makes me think of our Lord Jesus
Christ. There's so many scriptures where
Christ refers to himself. as the Son of Man. Matthew 9,
verse 6, but that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power
on earth to forgive sins, then saith he to the sick of the palsy,
arise, take up thy bed, go into thy house. Matthew 16, 13, whom
do men say that I, the Son of Man am? Mark 10, 45. For even the Son of Man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom for many. And then John 3, 14, 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. So we see the answer to this
question is found in Jesus Christ becoming the son of man, God
himself in human flesh. Galatians 4 verses 4 through 5, and I apologize,
I'm going through a lot of these scriptures quickly and I've got
them here and I'll just kind of read them. I don't want to
depend on my words. Let's look at what God says.
But when in the fullness of time was come, God sent his son forth,
made of a woman, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. Then John 1 verse 14, we read
in the word, that word that was in the beginning, the word that
was with God, the word that was God, that word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace. He's going to save somebody.
He's going to save a people and truth. We're dead. Outside of
Him, we're dead. So I wanted you to hold Luke
18. And let's let's let's go back
to that again. So after Christ said the things which are impossible
with men are possible with God. Then our old buddy Peter, he
pipes up and he says, Lo, we have left all and followed thee.
We've done what that rich young ruler couldn't do. We've given
up everything and we've followed you. And Christ, he said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, There is no man that hath
left house or parents or brethren or wife or children for the kingdom
of God's sake. You shall not receive manifold
more in this present time and in the world to come life everlasting. But then he goes and shows them
that they didn't really do that. And that the son of man needs
to accomplish a work for their salvation. Look at verse 31. Then he took under him the twelve
and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem and all things
that are written by the prophets concerning the son of man shall
be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto
the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated and
spit it on. And they shall scourge him and
put him to death. And the third day, he shall rise
again. We see that answer is contained
in the Son of Man, in Christ living a perfect, righteous life
for us, that we might become righteous before God in Him. And where is that spiritual life?
That spiritual life is in Christ. For since by man came death,
By man came also the resurrection of the dead, just as we saw right
there. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. He was made, but he was not,
so that we could be made in him what we want. That very, very
familiar scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. For he hath
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. So that's that's the
answer to the question in Christ. So back to Ezekiel now, I want
to look at. The next point, which is the
importance of preaching. Now, we already saw that God
sent a preacher to these dry bones. But then God tells Ezekiel to
preach to those dead, dry bones. So here we have Ezekiel standing
out in this valley, in this open valley full of bones, preaching
to them. And we see the glorious gospel
being preached to these poor, dead, dry sinners. But to natural
man, if you look out and you see some guy standing in a valley
of bones, that looks like utter foolishness. What are you doing,
wasting your time preaching to those dry bones? There's no hope
there at all. Well, here we see that what man
sees as foolish, God uses to save sinners. That's the importance
of preaching. In 1 Corinthians 1.18 we hear,
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
But unto us which are saved, it's the very power of God. Then
over a little bit more and later on in that same chapter, verse
21. For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So we're called
on to believe God. And it's through the preaching
of the word that God has chosen to speak to sinners. He doesn't
speak audibly to us anymore. Everything that we have is in
this book. This is how God's going to speak
to sinners. And he's going to send the preacher
to open this book and preach Christ to them. Romans 10 verses 13 through 14. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's what we're called
to do. Call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. How then
shall they call on him whom they have not believed? How shall
they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall
they hear without a preacher? So we see that God has chosen
to use the means of preaching to bring sinners to Christ. But
the important thing is, what's the message? And that's the next
thing that I want to look at. It's not just any preaching. It's preaching God's message,
God's word. We look in verse four. Again,
he said unto me, prophesy upon these bones and say unto them,
O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. What we see here
first and foremost is God tells the preacher what to say. God
gives the preacher the message. He tells them what to say. First thing, say unto them, tell
them their true condition. O ye dry bones, O ye dead sinners,
Look to Christ. Hear ye the word of the Lord.
We've got the word of the Lord here for you. Listen to what
I've got to say. You're utterly dead without it.
You need to hear this. So then faith cometh by hearing,
hearing by the word of God. We've got to be, the message
has to be given from God. 1 Peter 1, 23 through 25, being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever for all flesh
is this grass and all the glory of man is the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, the flower thereof fadeth away, but the
word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. So we need to hear the Word of
the Lord. What is the Word of the Lord?
It's more accurately, who is the Word of the Lord? Jesus Christ
is the Word of the Lord. God speaks to us, to our hearts,
through our Lord Jesus Christ. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God and all things were made by him. And without
Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and
the life was the light of man. Through the preaching of Christ,
God Himself speaks to these bones. Through preaching Christ. Thus
saith the Lord God unto these bones. Verse 5. Thus saith the
Lord God. God is speaking to these bones.
We have to have that message from God. John 5.25 says, Verily I say
unto you, The hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall
live. So we have to have, we have to
know who we are. We have to have that word come
from God. And then let's see what the preaching is. Verses
five through six, we see that God's going to tell the people,
these dead bones, what he's going to do, what he's going to do
for them. 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. God is going to do a work for
his people. It's nothing that they can do.
It's all of God. And then as we read through verses
seven and eight, we're going to see what happens. Ezekiel
preached exactly what God taught him to preach. The work of grace
began. 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
and there was no, but there was no breath in them. So we see
that as he preaches, there's a, there's a great noise and
these bones come together and they, they stand up and they,
they look like they've got life in them, but there's no breath. There's no breath in them. And
that brings us to the seventh point I wanted to look at, and
that's the importance of prayer and the work of the Spirit. And
these two I've kind of put together because really the Spirit is
where prayer comes from. We can't pray to God unless the
Spirit allows us to do so, unless God the Spirit puts it in our
hearts to pray to our Lord. Notice at the end of verse eight,
as we talked about, they look complete, but there's no breath
in them. That's just like having a head
knowledge of the various doctrines, of Tulip, of knowing your own
depravity and of knowing your need about the life that is the
love of Christ. And, you know, if this scripture
had stopped, This story had stopped at verse 8. What a sad, sad story
that would be. Standing there, but not alive. But God tells Ezekiel to prophesy
under the wind. And this represents praying for
God, the Holy Spirit, to breathe life into them. We see something
very similar in John 3 verses 3-8 with the story of Nicodemus. He comes to the Lord and God
tells him he must be born again. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? And Christ Jesus answered,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water
in the spirit, cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. 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, You must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit. Being born of the Spirit is like a wind. We can't direct that wind to
someone to be born of the Spirit. The Spirit's going to go where
God tells the Spirit to go. and he's going to breathe life
into sinners. But we can't pray for it, can't
we? And we do. But the work of that
spirit is life. And what is life? Life is very
simply and utterly mysteriously Christ in you. It's a new birth,
just as Christ told Nicodemus. New birth in Christ. Verse 14
down here a little bit further in Ezekiel. You see, thus saith,
I'm sorry, and shall put my spirit in you and you shall live. That's. Life is God putting his
spirit in us, creating in us a new spiritual man who loves
God, who is perfectly righteous before God, who is at war with
this natural man and his new life. Romans 8, verses 10 through
11. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because
of righteousness. But if the spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Colossians 1.25, to whom
God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you. That's what we pray for. We pray
for our children and loved ones all the time. Men stand before
this congregation and pray for our children. Don't leave them
with the head knowledge. Don't leave them as looking like
they know Christ, looking like they have life in them, but without
that new birth, without that spirit. Lord, don't leave us
Don't leave us with head knowledge. Don't leave us with pride of
grace that we know something other people don't know. Cause
that preaching to be effectual in our hearts. Cause us to know
that we're dead, dry bones. Cause us to seek Christ, to love
Him, to run to Him for all that we need. You know, talking about
pride and grace, we're not asked, are you elect? Are you one of
the elect? No. Are you dead? Are you a sinner? Do you need Christ? Is Christ
your only hope? That's our hope in the Lord Jesus
Christ in that blood. I just want to finish this study
by reading up 11 through 14. This is kind of an interesting
scripture in that God gives us a commentary almost immediately
following it and tells us what it means. So as I read through
this, let's see if what we looked at today, if that's what God
is telling us. Then said he unto me, son of
man, These bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they
say our bones are dried. Our hope is lost. We're cut off
for our parts. Therefore, prophesy 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 unto you and bring you into the land of Israel. And
ye shall know that I am the Lord, When I've 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 am
the Lord, that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it.