Good evening, everybody. If you would open your Bibles to Psalms chapter 78. This will not be our text, but I'm gonna read a passage here to kinda illustrate my introduction of what I wanna kinda set the stage for.

Psalm 78, I'm gonna start reading in verse 22. And this is the story that is given about the Lord's people and kind of the history of how they were brought out of Egypt and all the things that they saw and experienced. And there's some story that goes along with it, I think, to illustrate hopefully what I want to talk to you tonight about.

In verse 22, speaking of this people, the Hebrews that left Egypt, Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation, and though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and given them of the corn of heaven, man did eat angels' food, and he sent them meat to the full.

He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven, and by his power he brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like the sand of the sea. And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations. And so they did eat, and were well filled, for he gave them their own desire. They were not estranged from their lust.

But while their meat was in their mouths, the wrath of God came down on them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote them down, the chosen men of Israel. For all this they sinned still, and believed not his wondrous works. Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.

And when he slew them, then they sought him. Then they returned. and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues, for their heart was not right with him. Neither were they steadfast in his covenant.

But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not. Yea, many a time he turned his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.

How often did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned their back, and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not his hand, nor the day in which he delivered them from the enemy."

Now here we see a picture of a people who have been delivered from Israel God has given manna every morning everything they needed to eat. They murmured about eating the manna so he rained down birds on them to fill their bellies full of meat because they wanted that. And then because of their unbelief in him he punished them for it. They cry unto God but yet they flatter with their lips. They're not really following him. and they go back to turning away from him.

So he sees God's hand and purpose in all these mighty acts, the plagues, they saw these things, the cloud that they followed day and night, the parting of the Red Sea. They had seen all these things up to this point. And yet, what do we find in this people? Disobedience, unbelief, provoking God to his face, says they forgot about him, They walked contrary to his ways, and his wrath was kindled. And he would bring a great trial upon them, one that breaks their will. And then they cry out, they turn, they call upon his name in faith, expecting deliverance. And what does the Lord do? He shows pity to them. He delivers them. He puts their feet on solid ground to bless them and to deliver them from the trial, reaffirming his covenant to them and they to he. But then, things start to slide backwards again. Unbelief. They turn to the left, they turn to the right from the Lord, and they forget.

The problem in this case may look different. They went through many different trials that the Lord delivered them through, but the root problem is the same. They were dead in sins. These people Even though the Lord, as soon as they got out the door of Egypt, they started complaining about not having enough food and said, it was better back there than it is out here. Yet there they were slaves. So they found fault with everything God did.

Does this sound like anyone that you might know? Someone that the Lord does many things for you, shows you these things, but in time you forget, in time, The Lord has to then bring another trial into your life to cause you to come back, to cry, to seek his face, and then what does it take? Not a whole lot. It takes absolutely nothing for you to start sliding right back to where you were, and the cycle repeats.

As I was reading this passage, I thought, this is so wrong of them to act this way towards the Lord after all that he's done for them. After all he did in delivering them and for them to respond this way, and then I realized that's me. That's me. How many times have I been delivered? How many times have I been shown the Lord's mercy? And how quickly do I forget? How quickly do I find fault with everything around me? This is not going the way I thought it should. And yet, The Lord will bring another trial into my life and cause me to cry out and to remember and be shameful about the way I was. And this is the cycle.

So when I'm looking at them, I thought, that is me. I am dead in sin. And in considering that I'm alive, but I'm dead, I'm spiritually dead. So the show takes on a new word and a new life of the walking dead. This is what we are. We're dead, but we're alive in this world. Our flesh is alive, but my spirit's dead in me if God doesn't do something for me. There's nothing in me for God to love.

My father, Adam, in time past, rebelled against him. He had one rule, one thing that he didn't have to do. He said, Lord said, do not eat of the tree. And you'd think, and in me, just being me, I'm thinking like, you had one rule. You could do anything else. You had one rule. And he broke the rule. And the thing is, that's us. Is that you give me that same one rule, give me enough time, I'll break the rule. Or I'll find a way to, I'm thinking I'm not breaking the rule, but really am. So we're no different. We are sons and daughters of Adam. I can't blame Adam because I am his offspring. Look at how I've done on my own. Let's take Adam's sin out of it. How have you done on your own? How have you done on your own? And I can look at me and say, I can take Adam out of this and I can see every reason why the Lord can find fault with me to punish me and to view me as an enemy, an enemy that deserves to be executed.

And thus is the fate of all men and women in this world. This is why we die. What's the one reason for death? Sin. And that is why there is a 100% success rate. If you were born into the world, you sin, you will die. I have met a member of an army who lost their battle with God a long time ago. There was an army that stood up against him, the human race, they stood up and said, we will not have this man to reign over us. Stood up against him, and we lost our battle with God a long time ago. And now, I lie dead. I can't see, I can't feel, I can't stand, I can't believe, and I can't think.

So what I would like you to do now is turn over to Ezekiel 37, and we will go to the scene of the battle. This is the aftermath of a battle that happened long ago. Ezekiel chapter 37, scene of the lost battle. And this will be our text for this evening. And we'll just look at these first 14 verses.

And this is the prophet speaking 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 he caused me to pass by them round about, and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry."

What this tells us here, dry, anytime you read this word dry, this signifies no life. You know, we have to have water to live. Everything in our bodies, nature around us, even what seems dry, there is a form of water in it. When it's speaking here of these bones being dry, there's no life in them. These bones have dried and have laid there.

And the thing about these bones, as I consider this, they all look the same. We don't know anything about the people that occupied these bones, but they're all the same. Rich, poor, Someone who's beautiful. Someone who's plain. Mothers. Fathers. Sons. Friends. Enemies. There's no different. Bones. When you strip everything away, you take off our nice clothes, our nice face, our clean selves that we present to the world. When you strip us down, there's nothing there. It's just bones. And what can bones do? Bones can't do anything for you. They can just, in this case, lay there. And it says that there were very many.

In verse three, he says unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. This is the title of my message, Can These Bones Live? And I want you to stop here And to consider this, from the outside, when we look at these bones, there is no indication that this is possible, is there? We see bones. You see, you go out on a farm and you see like a cow's body where it's died somewhere on the hill. I remember as a kid seeing one and all the flesh had been stripped off of it. It was just bones. And I remember looking at it and thinking, well, there at one time was a cow and now there's no more. It's no different with us as men and women. These bones can't live. When we look at them, there's no sign of life. They've been dead a long time. Too late. They can't live.

Were these bones even aware that they were in the condition that they were? No. The bones didn't care. They weren't upset about it. They weren't happy about it. They weren't ambivalent about it. They were just there. They were unaware. And neither can you, and neither can I, if we are outside of Christ, apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. We are just as aware as these bones of our dead condition. We have no idea outside of the Holy Spirit that we're dead. Before I came to a knowledge of Christ and had it revealed to me, I didn't know I was dead. I felt fine. But when the Lord reveals himself to you and you see you in yourself are dead, you have no ability to see him. You have no ability to worship him. You have no love for him. I had head knowledge. I grew up in a church. I knew who he was because I was told that's who he was. I knew the facts, but I had no love for Christ. I didn't trust him. I didn't look to him as everything in my salvation. So I knew the facts, but it wasn't real to me to where I loved it. I loved him. I might have known the systematic theology.

The dead do not see. The dead do not feel. The dead do not love, understand, believe, or worship. They are just dead. How then could you or I presume to do so being outside of being born of above? We can't. We can go through the motions and think we are, but apart from the work of God the Holy Spirit, we can't.

Can these bones live? The prophet wisely does not insert an answer here, even though the Lord asks him a question. Son of man, can these bones live? The prophet does not limit the power of God to what he thinks. It's a pile of bones to what he sees. It's obvious there is no life. They've been dead a long time, said they're very dry. Oh, to what he believes, what his knowledge is about the situations. What I see, what I think, what I believe has nothing to do with the power of God.

And the prophet wisely responds this way. He says, oh Lord, thou knowest. I'm not going to limit what you can do just because I don't see it. And isn't that what faith is? We're trusting in something we can't put our hands on. We're trusting in someone that we can't physically see in their room. I can see him in his word. I can feel him touch my heart. But I can't see, feel, and touch this. And yet the prophet is showing this in the way he responds to the Lord. And this is something that we have to consider very closely.

We ought not either. We don't know you and I do not know who is saved and who is not. Now from the outside we might be able to render our own judgment what we think what we feel and what we see. But we don't know what the Lord will do in his own time. You think about this right here. And this kind of came to my mind you know because when you look at a situation and you can say yeah it sure doesn't look like it. It sure doesn't appear that way to me.

Jonah thought the same thing. When Jonah was told to go preach, to cry out to the city of Nineveh, you go there and you tell them, Lord's going to destroy them. They're all going to die. This is going to happen. And we all know the story of Jonah where he's like, you know, I'm not going to do it. And then he goes in the belly of the fish and he's thrown back up. Jonah goes, he preaches the message that he was supposed to do the first time. And what happened? Did it happen? Because from the outside, it would have appeared that the Lord was going to destroy those people. Because that's even what he told him to go do and to tell that message. He goes there and tells them, and what does the king do? He proclaims a fast, sackcloth and ashes, and his message to the people was who knows if God may turn and repent from his fierce anger that we perish not. And it's just so the Lord did turn from his anger in that situation. So what it appeared to be from the outside, what Jonah thought, was not what the Lord intended to do. And then Jonah got mad, and then there's the rest of the story saying, you know, I knew you'd do this. And so, you know, I can identify with, I think, Jonah probably more than I should.

For our friends and family, there's nothing greater than we can give them. It appears from the outside there's no life in these dry bones. But we'll see later here, God will make them live. What appears to us to look like it won't live, God can do far greater than we can think or feel or see. But they don't care. My friends and family, they don't care. Neither did the bones. These bones didn't care at all. They weren't even aware that they were dead. And yet that didn't stop the Lord from doing something for them.

But they don't want to believe in God. Neither did the bones. It doesn't require you to have to want to believe apart from the Lord putting it in your heart. The Lord can work through many means. If there's life, there's still time, and we're to not limit the power of God in this. For he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. I won't limit the power of God limited to my knowledge, my preconceived notions of what I think about a person or a situation.

So what do we do here? Oh Lord, thou knowest. In verse four, he says again, prophesy unto the bones, preach to them. What do you want me to say? You dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. And this is the power of the living God. We don't know power like this. This is power to give life to that which is dead, something that we cannot do as human beings. This is the work of God.

And in verse five, it says, Thus saith the Lord unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you. and you shall live and I will lay sinews upon you and I will bring upon flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord. You know what I don't see here? What I see here is the Lord saying, I will and you shall. What I don't see is a request to choose him I don't see a request to accept his offer if you will make it your own. And I don't see a request to give your life to Jesus. He is life. You don't give him your life. He is life. The way, the truth, and the life. I see a command. I see an I will and you shall.

And this question came to my mind as he, you know, imagine Ezekiel here speaking, preaching to the bones. Was there one bone, and I mean one bone, that didn't move when God said move? Not even a pinky. Every one of these bones came together exactly where it was supposed to go. There wasn't one left over that just didn't make it. I will, and you shall, and it says, you shall know that I am the Lord. You shall know that I am the great I am, the only one here who the face of the world had to bow down to.

Remember, you think about the God that is preached today is one that people feel very familiar with, one that they can approach to and speak to in what I think is a very irreverent manner. That's not the same God that the Hebrews saw. The ones that they said when Moses took him out in the wilderness and he was on Mount Sinai, they told Moses, we don't want to talk to him. Enough of him. You go talk to him for us. We do not want to deal with him. He's too big. He's too mean. He's too angry. We do not want to deal with him because they knew he was God. There was no mistaking that he was in control. He would do with whom what he chose to, when he chose to, and how he chose to. This was not something that we can familiar like approach. They couldn't even get on the mountain.

So the God that is preached today is not the God of the Bible. This is the same God, the one that gives life to the dead. He's the Lord God Almighty who saves whom he will. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, our Savior, the one that died for his people, the one that gave them life, his righteousness, and cleansed us from our sin. This is the same God. This is the one to whom we approach.

Can one not be saved that he intended to save? It's impossible. If the Lord has intended to save you, you must be saved. If Christ has paid with his own blood and his life for yours, you must live. Because we are united to Christ. This is what we see here, the I will and you shall.

There's not a greater thing that makes me smile when I read this, because this is the power of God. This is not an invitation. There was no response from the bones. Are you okay with I do this? You'll live. In the same way, Lazarus was called forth from the dead. Lazarus, come forth. There was no debate with Lazarus about what would happen before or response from Lazarus. He came forth. And in this same way, the Lord is giving life to dead bones.

In verse seven. So I prophesied, I preached as I was commanded. And I prophesied, and 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 flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them.

And I think in the past when I read this, I kind of went past this to get to the latter, a higher point. But what I realized here, what was the purpose of this? This is religion. This is exactly what religion is. It is bones covered with flesh, but there's no life in them. It's something that looks like it's alive, but it's not. It goes through the motions of certain acts and emulations that look like spiritual worship, things that would be fruits of the Spirit, but yet there's no life.

But without the work of God the Holy Spirit, these bones are just bones with flesh on them. There's no breath. The breath spoken of here is the Spirit of God. We'll keep on reading. And he said 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. Because up to this point, they weren't. The breath is the life. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and they stood up on their feet in exceeding great army.

Where the spirit is, there is life. There is life from the dead. The life that we lost when our father Adam ate of the fruit and we died spiritually is restored. And we are, this is the being born again. We are birthed in Christ, a new creature. And only that work is the spirit of God as evidenced here in the passage.

And in verse 11, this is interesting. And then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. And behold, they say our bones are dried. Our hope is lost and we're cut off for our parts. Our bones are dry and our hope is lost. Why do they say that? Because they were aware of their condition. They felt cut off. They were dead before. They weren't saying that before. Now they've been in late alive. They can see what their condition was. They can see our bones were dry. They were dry before, but they weren't aware of them.

Where the spirit is, there's life. And it gives us the life to be able to see. We cannot know that we are dead without spiritual life, but we can know when we're made to live. This is the I will and you shall of the scripture. And this is this cry that they give, a cry that God will hear. Our bones are dry. I'm dead. I have no life in me. There's no reason you should come to me and do anything for me. My hope is lost because all I see is my sin.

The longer I live, I hope my faith is growing in Christ. The longer I live, the more I see in my sin, the more aware of it I am. And I don't even believe that my sin is growing, I think I'm just more aware of it. And that, I think, is one of the hardest things to bear because it's been that way all along and I had no idea. I come before the Lord, who I am, do what I do, think what I think, how presumptuous. But yet, this is the cry that the Lord hears. I feel cut off from you, Lord, help me.

And in verse 12 he says, therefore prophesy and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God. Behold, O my people. He owns them, even though they are the dry bones that feel cut off. I will open your graves, and I will cause you to come up out of your graves, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. I'll open your graves, I'll give you life. This is speaking of the resurrection. Yes, it's speaking of the grave of this dead man that I am that Paul talked about in Romans 7, who shall deliver me of this body of death. Yes, it's being birthed in spiritual life in this world, in this life when he does. This is also speaking of resurrection. I will pull you up out of your graves. and cause you to come out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.

What he's telling us here, this is him giving spiritual life and this is being united to Christ and him bringing us to where he is. Wherever Christ is, that's where I want to be. I don't want to be apart from him. I don't know what heaven will look like, but I know if he's there, everything's all right. I remember as a kid thinking it would be like this ongoing church service because this is worship. We were told, I remember Henry would tell us, we'll be worshiping Christ for eternity. And I remember as a kid thinking, I can barely get through an hour. What am I gonna do there? But that's not what it is. It's having an understanding and a love for Christ and having communion with him. And in doing that and appreciating and loving him and worshiping him and learning all these things that we don't even know that are going on. These are worshiping Christ. And so to be with him, to be in his presence, to be in fellowship, that's something I don't want to be apart from and something I want to know more of.

In verse 13, I will bring you into the land of Israel and you shall know that I am the Lord. And when I have 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, and then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord."

The giving here of a spiritual life, this is regeneration. This is being regenerated with the new spirit that only the Holy Spirit can give us in this life. It's also being given our new body when we're resurrected. What he has created, it cannot die.

If Christ died for me, there's no way that I can die because my life is in union with his. He's the vine and we are the branches. When we look at a tree outside, we don't say, well, there's the leaves, there's the branches, there's the trunk. We say, there's the tree.

I don't know what I'm preaching about in that I don't know what that'll look like being united to him, but what I do know is if I'm alive, there's only one reason. It's because he's alive. If I'm accepted, there's only one reason. It's nothing I've done, it's because he's accepted. If I'm forgiven, it's because he died.

So these are the only means by which I can approach, and these are the means by which I will know that I'm His. I'll be united to Him. Our life is in union with His. If He conquered death and hell on the cross, if I'm united to Him, I will never die. And every believer that is united to Him will never die, will not know death, not in the same way. And we will truly know Him.

And this is something that, you know, Paul said, we see in a glass darkly in this life. We see a reflection, but it's hazy and dark and we can't really make it out. We have some understanding that there's a figure there, but I can't really see the details. And for us, that's our spiritual understanding in this life. The Lord teaches us through his word, through preaching, through experience. but we really will never fully know Him until we're with Him, not because we're in these sinful bodies and we can't.

You and I, we are commanded to believe His Word. This is His Word, and there are many uncertainties in life, but there's not here. There's not one promise that has fallen short in His Word. He will do exactly as He has promised. And when we stumble in this life, much of what scripture is, how many times I've written in my Bible, even in the Psalms especially, everything is a call to remembrance. Most of scripture is pointing to what's already been done. Remember when I brought you out of Egypt. Remember when I fed you in the wilderness. Remember when I parted the sea, when you were gonna die. Remember those things. God says that to his people. We are called to remember the work of Christ. Remember the person of Christ who stands for me. Who he is and what he's done.

Who is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. If that's the only thing I know, then I know that I can't be found condemned because he was condemned for me. And God willing, one day I will see his face. It will be the first face that you see when God raises you out of your grave. If he doesn't come back when I'm alive, I will be in a grave or wherever I'm at dead, just like these bones, first face that I will see is his. And then I will, can you imagine that experience of being able to see his face for the first time and to know him? and to see him, and to know that everything's all right, and that you're his child, and that he's brought you over with him, and you can never be taken apart, to truly know that he is the Lord.

So I ask the question, can these bones live? Well, I know they can live if there's an I will. then you shall. All right, I'll leave you there.