Ezekiel chapter 37. The prophet
Ezekiel lived at the same time that Jeremiah lived. He wrote,
preached, and prophesied at the same time that Jeremiah did. Ezekiel, he lived in captivity
in Babylon while Jeremiah stayed in Jerusalem. If you look back
at chapter 1 of Ezekiel, where all this began, Ezekiel received
a vision of God. Ezekiel 1 verse 1. Now it came
to pass in the 30th year, in the fourth month and the fifth
day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar,
that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. Now throughout the book of Ezekiel,
Ezekiel tells us about the visions of God that he received. If you
read through the book of Ezekiel, you'll notice that it's very
similar to the book of revelations. I'll tell you the reason for
it. John and Ezekiel saw the same person. They both received
a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ezekiel received a vision of
Christ and he faithfully preached Christ. He faithfully declared
this vision of Christ throughout his book. And by God's grace,
we preach Christ too. So here's my question this morning.
Why? The title of the lesson is why
do we preach Christ? Well, number one, we preach Christ
because the hand of God puts men in the ministry. 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 the valley, which was full of bones. Now, no man can preach
Christ. unless God puts him in the ministry.
God's got to put a man in the ministry. How can they preach
except they'd be sinned? The apostle Paul was in ministry,
wasn't he? And he thanked God because God,
Paul said, put him in the ministry. Now that's a great burden to
have the ministry, the word of God laid upon you, but what an
honor, great joy that God had put his hand on a man and put
him in the ministry to preach Christ. And the man that God
puts in the ministry will be faithful. He'll be a faithful
man, he'll be faithful to preach Christ. Now, if he puts himself
in the ministry, because he thinks, you know, the life of a preacher
is so easy, hard to tell what he'll do. But if God puts a man
in the ministry, he'll be faithful to preach Christ. And when God
puts a man in the ministry, God will give that man a hearing
too. These dry bones, this valley of bones that Ezekiel was put
in, They represent God's people. I'll show you that later on.
These bones represent God's people. And Ezekiel was put right down
in the middle of them because Ezekiel is one of them. He's
one of those dry bones by nature and he preaches and all Ezekiel
is is a sinner preaching to other sinners. God puts a man in the
ministry and then God puts people in the ministry too. He puts
people in that ministry to hear of Christ, to worship together.
He puts people in that ministry to be saved by that message of
Christ. He puts his people in that ministry
to be fed the word of God, and he puts them in that ministry
to support that ministry. We preach. We preach Christ because
God has put a man in a ministry to do just that, to preach the
gospel. God hadn't called me to do social work or you know,
try to change our society and all the ills of society. God
puts a man in the ministry for this purpose, to preach Christ. Second, we preach Christ because
men are dead in sin and Christ is their only hope. Look here
at verse two. And cause me to pass by them round about, and
behold, there are very many in the open valley, and lo, they
were very dry. This valley was full of very
dry bones. Apparently, at some point in
history, there had been a great battle there. Two armies met,
and many men died in that battle. And the battle must have been
a long time ago, because by the time Ezekiel comes to this valley,
there's no bodies lying around, just bones. The bones aren't
even lying there in whole skeletons. The bones have been scattered
all around. All the soldiers died. You know,
the decay happened, the animals came and tore the bodies apart
and took the bone here and there. The bones are not all together
in a skeleton, they're scattered everywhere. All hope of life
is gone. The bones aren't even in the
form of a skeleton and they're very dry. They're sun bleached,
they're scorched, bleached white by the sun. Now that's a picture
of man by nature. Our father, Adam, many, many,
many years ago was in a battle. He was in a battle with sin.
He was tempted by sin and Adam was slaughtered by sin. It was
a great slaughter. A whole army didn't just die.
A whole race died. Adam's whole race died. Scripture
says in Adam, all died. The soldiers whose bones are
left in this valley, They didn't just there and die by natural
causes. They were slain. They were put
to death by the enemy. That's us. We are slain by the
enemy. Sin has killed us. And this valley
was a horrible sight. All these bones, oh my, the carnage
and the death and the misery. And that's what God's preachers
see. You wanna know why man's faithful to preach Christ? Because
it's heartbreaking to see the effect of sin on people. Oh,
we're in a valley of very many bones, dry, dead bones. It's heartbreaking. Now, I know
dead is dead. You know, we can't bring somebody
back to life if they've been dead for a few minutes or many
years. You know, I know someone's heart may stop. We may shock
it and get it, you know, to restart. But once God has taken the spirit
from the body, There is no putting that life back in that body.
Well, dead is dead, but you and I haven't been dead for a short
time. We've been dead a long time. I mean a long time. All
hope of life is gone. These bones are very dry. But I want you to look at the
question the Lord asked in verse three. He said unto me, son of
man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. Now, what a question. I mean,
I just envision myself in this valley of dry bones. This question
wouldn't have even occurred to me. Can these bones live? It's
out of the question. Of course these bones can't live.
They're very dry. The question just wouldn't even
have occurred to me. It shows you what we know, doesn't it?
It's no wonder we don't have all the answers. We don't even
know the right questions. You can't get, we don't have
the right questions, and certainly we don't have the right answers.
You can't get the right answers from the wrong questions. God's
got to give us first the right questions and then he gives us
the answer. And the answer is always Christ. You've got a question and the
question to your answer is not Christ. You got the wrong question. The right questions all have
the same answer. It's Christ. Now I want you to
look what Adam has made God's elect by nature. I mean, this
is a mess of dry bones. They're scattered everywhere.
You couldn't tell which bone belongs to which body. And they're
very dry. They're very dead. They're very
scattered. Can these bones live? These bones
that are scattered and so dry, can they live? Well, human logic
says this. If these bones are going to live,
we've got to do some organizing, don't we? We've got to put the
hip bone to the leg bone whatever bone, to the toe bone, to the
knee bone. We're going to have to do some organizing. And then
we're going to have to pump some life into these skeletons, you
know. Now human logic says, here's what life is. Someone is alive. They have life if they're moving
around, they're talking, they're acting like they're doing something.
So what we need to do with these bones is replicate that. We'll
get the bones together and then In order for them to move, we're
going to put some strings on them and we'll have them like
a marionette. We'll get them moving around
and it looks like they're alive. At least we're going to count
them as ones that are alive. Now that's not life. I mean,
how foolish is that? If somebody was trying to do
that with the skeletons out at the cemetery, we'd put them in
an institution. They're a danger to themselves
and others is what we'd say. But that's exactly what's going
on at this very moment in this town and towns all across this
country in false religion. They're trying to organize things,
get someone to act a certain way, get them to confess with
their mouth and be baptized, get them to start tithing, get
them to start doing some witnessing, get them to take some classes
on how to live the Christian life, and they call that salvation.
Now look at Romans chapter 10. I know that's what human logic
says, but what does God say? I mean, that's all that counts,
is what does God say is spiritual life? Romans 10, verse 8. But what saith it? The word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the
word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, now don't leave this out, and shalt
believe in thine heart, that God raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. Believe in your heart. Salvation's
a heart work. Salvation's not an organizational
work. Salvation is the giving of a
new heart. Life comes from within. Life comes from the heart. And
the movement of this outer body is evidence of life from within. Salvation is in the heart. Salvation
is God giving a new heart, and that salvation is confessed by
the mouth. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh. If God gives you a new heart,
it'll come out on you. You're not saved because you
confessed with your mouth. You're saved because God gave
you life from within. There's a difference there, isn't
there? Well, can these bones live? Who can put a heart, a
living heart in a dead man? The only one I know who can do
that is God. Can these spiritually dead live? Oh Lord, thou knowest. If you give them life, they'll
live. Why do we preach Christ? Because men are dead in sin and
Christ is the only hope a dead sinner has. Thirdly, why do we
preach Christ? We preach Christ because God's
commanded us to preach Christ. Look back in our text, Ezekiel
37, verse seven. Ezekiel said, so I prophesied
as I was commanded. God gave a commandment to preach
Christ. This is not optional. God gave
us a commandment to preach Christ. And he's given us a commandment
to preach a specific message. And that message is Christ. Now
look back at verse four. Again, he said unto me, prophesy
upon these bones and say unto them, oh, you dry bones, hear
the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God under
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. Now there are several things
here about this message of Christ we're to preach. First, the gospel
of Christ is for sinners. Isaiah's commandment wasn't to
living soldiers, was it? It was to dry dead bones. And
his message to the bones is here. Now, if you're not dead in sin,
the message of Christ is not for you. If you're not guilty
and ruined by sin, the gospel message is not for you. But if
you're dead in sin, if you're ruined by sin, if you're undone
by sin, if you're guilty in sin, your bones have been scattered,
then the gospel message is for you. If you have no hope, the
gospel message is for you. And second, the message of the
gospel, the message of the gospel of Christ is I will and you shall. The message of the gospel is
not due. The message of the gospel is
done. Christ has done it all. The message of the gospel is
not what you're going to do for God. The message of the gospel
is what God's already done for sinners in his son. You're dry,
dead bones. No hope. Can't do anything. But
God says, I will. I will give you life. I'll put
breath in you. I'll give you life from within.
Remember, God made Adam out of the dust. There lay that body. What does scripture say God did
with that body? He breathed life into him and Adam became a living
soul. God breathes spiritual life into
his people and they live spiritually. I'll put life in you. I'll put
breath in you. And God says, I'm going to lay
sinews upon you. That's tendons that hold the
bones together. That can't be anybody but Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 17 says, Christ is before all things. And by
him, all things consist. By him, all things are held together. What holds a believer together?
What holds you to God? What holds you to each other?
It's Christ to send you to hold you together. And God says, I'll
bring flesh upon you. And that word flesh is actually
a person. I'll bring a person upon you.
That's a new birth. God's going to cause you to be
born again, to cause a new man to be born in the image of Christ.
And he says, I'll cover you with skin. I'll give you a covering. That's what our skin, all our
skin is, is a covering. That covering is the righteousness
of Christ. I'm going to cover you. God says,
this is what I'll do. I will, and you shall. Because I will, you shall live. You're going to have life. And
because I do this, I will and you shall, you shall know I am
the Lord. I'm going to do this for you
and you're going to know God did this. It's not something
I did. God did this. He did this in me and he did
this for me. That's the message we're commanded
to preach. This is, we preach this message, the message of
Christ we were commanded to. Fourthly, We preach Christ because
preaching Christ will produce results, true results. God's commanded us to do what
we cannot do. Ezekiel told the dry bones live. He told the dry bones hear. The
dead bones can't hear. They're dead. They don't even
have ears. They're dead. We command, when we preach the
gospel, we command sinners, you hear what God said. I command
spiritually deaf people to hear God, but they can't hear, they're
dead. Now God's commanded us to preach,
hasn't he? He's commanded us to speak, and
by his grace, that's what we do. Week after week after week,
we preach. And you sit and listen. And one
day, God speaks. One day there you sit and God
Almighty speaks and you hear. You'll never hear if all you
hear is me. But if you belong to Christ, God's going to speak
to you. And when God speaks, sinners hear and there's a result. My sheep hear my voice and what's
the result? They follow me. Now there's a
noise when the gospel is preached. Sometimes that noise, it could
be saber rattling. You know, maybe those dry dead
bones, they rebel. They don't like the sound of
the gospel. Sometimes the noise we hear is God beginning to work
on his people. But one way or another, every
time we preach, there's results. Look, second Corinthians chapter
two, every time we preach, They might not necessarily be
the results we pray for, but we can't say, well, I'm discouraged
with this ministry because there's no results. No, there's results
every time. Look at 2 Corinthians 2 verse
14. Now thanks be unto God, which
always causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest
the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are
unto God a sweet saver of Christ in them that are saved. and in
them that perish. To the one, we're the saver of
death unto death, and to the other, a saver of life unto life. Now, who is sufficient for these
things? When the gospel is preached,
it either produces life, it produces a blessing to the heart of faith,
or it produces death to the heart of unbelief and just adds to
the condemnation of those who refuse to believe. That happens
every single time the gospel's preached. Every time we preach
Christ, God's purpose, his eternal purpose is accomplished. Now,
Ezekiel preached as he was commanded and there were results. All the
bones came together. Look here at verse seven back
in our text, Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel preached as he was commanded
and this is what's happened. 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 I beheld,
lo, the sinews came, and the flesh came up upon them, and
the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them.
Now, all the bones came together. They formed skeletons. There's
suddenly all this rattling. Can you imagine all the noise,
those bones, you know, going and finding their mate and all
joining together? Just like God promised, sinews
came on the And flesh came on those skeletons. And those skeletons
stood up. A great army. They all stood
at attention in their rows. Perfect rows. Nice and orderly. The false prophets say, don't
anybody move. Let me take a picture of this. This is just what we
want. Look at this order. Everything's perfect. Just like
we wanted it to be. But there's one problem. They're
not breathing. Oh, they look good, don't they?
But there's no life within. They're just as dead standing
there as they were when they were scattered bones. There's
no life in them. Brethren, the form of life, what
looks like life, is not spiritual life. The form of doctrine is
not spiritual life. Talking the talk, using the right
jargon, that's not spiritual life. Getting all of our doctrinal
ducks in a row, you know, and everything's nice and neat and
just the way, you know, it all makes sense to us. That's not
spiritual life. You know, just saying like all
my Calvinistic ducks in a row, well, you're still dead. Salvation
is not in Calvinism. Christ is the Savior. There's
no spiritual life until God breathes life into a person in the new
birth. There's no life until Christ dwells in our hearts by
faith. Until the Spirit dwells in us, there's no life. So fifthly,
why do we preach Christ? We preach Christ because the
preaching of Christ is the only message the Holy Spirit will
bless. Look at verse nine. 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, 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 up on their feet and exceeding great
army. You see, there is no life in
the army until Ezekiel prayed that the wind come from the four
points of the compass and blow life into these dead bodies.
Now look at John chapter three. What on earth is that? Where's
the gospel in that? Well, the gospel in that is the
new birth. This is the Holy Spirit coming,
giving life. In John chapter three, verse
six, it says, you know this conversation our Lord's having with Nicodemus.
Our Lord says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Two totally different
natures. So marvel not that I said unto
thee, ye must be born again, How does it happen that you're
born again? Well, the wind bloweth where it listeth. Thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and
whither it goeth. So is everyone that's born of
a spirit. Now, many of you, like me, heard
the gospel many, many, many times. And suddenly, one day, you believed. You heard the gospel many times.
But suddenly, you loved what you heard. Maybe you grieved.
Yeah, this is true. But now it's more in this agreement,
this is true. Now you love what you hear. What
happened? What caused the difference? The
Holy Spirit came. The Holy Spirit blew and gave
life. Now, I don't know where it came
from. I can't explain how He worked,
but I know He did it. How do you know? Because now
there's life where there's been nothing but death. Now there's
belief and faith where there's been nothing but unbelief. Now
there's love where there's been nothing but hatred of God. The
Spirit did that. You see, we don't get results
from our efforts to organize everything, get everybody doing
just what we want them to do. No, God gives life. God, the
Holy Spirit, gives life and He does it through the preaching
of the gospel, through the preaching of Christ. Faith cometh by hearing. Now this is very important. I
hope you'll listen to me. If this there's one thing I get
you to do, this would be it to pray. Pray that the Holy Spirit
will bless his word. That's what Dale said. Oh, I
pray the spirit will sweep over our soul. There'll be no blessing
unless the spirit gives it. I beg of you through throughout
your week. Anytime I come to your mind,
pray for me. I beg of you. There's an old
preacher who this is reported that he said this. He knew it
was time for him to retire because preaching got so difficult. And he's afraid it's because
the people quit praying, quit praying for him. Brother Roy
tells me all the time, I pray for you. I pray for you every
day. Janet often tells me, I pray for you. And there'll be times
I'm in my study and I'm looking and I don't see anything. I'm just,
oh, what a misery. Just work, work, work, work,
work. I don't see anything. And suddenly, there he is. There's the Savior. There's Christ.
Now I see the message. And I think to myself, Somebody's
prayed for me. I think that this, I can't tell
you how often that happens. I beg of you that you pray that
the Lord bless me in the study. Pray that the Lord give me a
message for you from his word. Pray the Lord give me some understanding
of his word and the ability to preach it faithfully, to preach
it in love for him and love for you because no man can preach
unless the Spirit blesses him. We just read, who's sufficient
for these things? Nobody. You'll never receive
a blessing unless God the Holy Spirit blesses the preacher.
That's just so. Every preacher would be a better
preacher if the Spirit would bless. Then pray for him, pray
for him. Yes, Spurgeon said the success
of his ministry came from the people constantly praying for
him. And the man who knows He not
sufficient for this will beg your prayers. I beg of you that
you pray for me and pray for yourself. Pray the Spirit will
give you life. Pray the Spirit will bless the
word to your heart. You'll not get any life or blessing
unless he does. Do you love your children? Pray the Spirit will come. Bless
the gospel. Bless the word to the hearts
of your children. How about the loss in our community?
Oh boy, we're in a valley of very dry bones, very many. Can
these bones live? They will if God blesses. They
will if the Spirit comes, and the only way He'll do it is through
the preaching of Christ. Now this prophecy, is for the
people of God. This prophecy is specifically
for the people of God. Look here in verse 11 in our
text. Then he said unto me, Son of
man, these bones, I'll tell you who they are. They're 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 and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God.
Behold, O my people, I'll open your graves and cause you to
come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.
And ye shall know that I am the Lord. I've opened your graves
on my people and brought you up out of your graves and should
put my spirit in you and you shall live. And I shall place
you in your own land. Then shall you know that I, the
Lord has spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. Now I know
that this prophecy refers to the nation Israel, that they
will, once they're in captivity at this time, they will return
to Jerusalem. And they did, didn't they? But
more importantly, this message, this prophecy is to spiritual
Israel. And God says to spiritual Israel,
you're in your graves, you're dead in Adam, but I'm going to
give you life. I'm going to come and save all
of my people. And I know it may look like there's
no hope. It may look like there's no results. What's going on? There's no results.
But my friend, don't ever lose hope. As long as there's breath
in the body, don't ever lose hope because God's able. He's
going to save his people. What are we to do? God's the
one who's going to save his people. What we're to do is be faithful
to do what God's commanded us to do. Just preach Christ. Our job is not to produce results. Our job is to be faithful, obedient
servants. Just do what God's given you
to do. Just preach Christ and pray and wait on Him to give
the increase. And what joy, what confidence
to know He will. How do I know He will? He just
promised. The one who cannot lie just promised. Then we're going to preach Christ
and we're going to be faithful to wait, pray and to wait on
Him. He's going to say