Now, I want you to turn to Ezekiel
37. We are going to take a trip to
the boneyard. When I had a machine shop, we had a place out back we called
the boneyard. It's where we threw all the scrap
metal. After we used up what we wanted, we threw the scrap
metal out there. And after we got enough of it, we took it
to the A place that would buy a scrap metal and they gave you
very little for it compared to what you paid for it. But we
call it our boneyard. That's where you threw all the
scrap. We are going to take a trip to
the boneyard for a little bit this morning here in Ezekiel
37. You know the Old Testament is
so full of pictures and types. You know, they say a picture's
worth a thousand words. God's given us so much in the
Old Testament. And it's so, to you who understand,
to you who have eyes, it's so easy to see Christ in these.
And we have a picture here of the spiritual Israel of God.
I'm not going to try and say anything about Israel over there
in the Middle East and this application to them. I'm talking to you this
morning. Talking to you. I've learned to try to preach
to the audience in front of me, not the ones that are not here. And we have a real picture here
of us, and everyone whom God saves, here in this chapter of
Ezekiel 37. Now he starts out here in verse
1, and he says, The hand of the Lord was upon me, and I sure
pray that so this morning. I pray that the hand of God is
upon me this morning in preaching. As Gabe said earlier, he said,
who is sufficient for these things? God is our sufficiency. Who is sufficient to handle matters
of life and death? Who's sufficient to handle the
glory of God? The gospel of his glory, no man
sufficient, no clay pot. No clay pot. God has put this
treasure in earthen vessels and no clay pot is sufficient of
themselves to stand here and preach to sinners like me and
you. Especially the dead ones. Especially
dead ones. One of the things I learned in
my earlier years, and it took me a little while to learn it,
I learned that we can't preach until God enables us to preach.
The first thing we have to learn is we can't do it. We can't do
it. The hand of the Lord must be
upon me. No amount of formal education can make us sufficient. The ability to rightly divide
the word of truth, as you said in the very beginning of this
conference, the ability to do that, to rightly divide the word
of truth is of God. You see, Scripture interprets
Scripture and the Holy Spirit reveals to us the truth. You know, I'm not standing up
here interpreting the Scriptures to you. That's the Holy Spirit. He interprets Scripture with
Scripture and gives us an understanding. I'm here proclaiming, not explaining. I'm here to proclaim the Word
of Truth. And that's of God. That's of
God. And he says here, He carried me out in the Spirit and set
me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. Full, there was no place to walk.
You're going to step on bones, it's so full. He carried me. Jesus Christ is our strength
and service. I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. Christ said without me you can
do nothing. You cannot breathe without Jesus
Christ. You cannot move without Jesus
Christ. And we especially can't preach
without the Lord Jesus Christ. He must strengthen us and direct
us where to preach the gospel. He carried me. He said, He carried
me. He appoints the place, He appoints
the time, and He appoints the service. You know, the servant
does not pick his place of service nor the time of his service.
God does that. I was called to Bethel Baptist
Church 60 years of age. Who wants to call an old man?
God did. God did. He called an old man
60 years of age and sent him to North Carolina. He's the one who points our place
in time of service. And I tell you this, if he left
it up to us, none of us who preach would go to a graveyard to preach,
would we? We wouldn't go to a cemetery. Now who's going to get up on
Sunday morning and go to a cemetery and preach? God's man. God's man. That's who. That was
probably one of the most unlikely places to hold a meeting. Our
natural tendency is to look at the well-watered plains of Jordan
and go there. We want to go where the metropolis
is. We want to go where the people are. Why would God send Philip
to a desert? There's only one reason why God
would send Philip to a desert. Because he has a sheep that's
riding in a chariot going in that desert. He sent his man
all the way to the desert. Took him away from the crowd
and sent him down there to one sheep. One sheep. If there's
one sheep here this morning, I pray there's more than that,
but if there's one sheep, it's worth the plane ride, the plane
ticket and the cost to come here in Arkansas and preach the gospel
to that one sheep. You're worth it. Christ came
from glory. He came from glory and came into
this world and since Paul was sent, One sheep. This one, this one,
this one, this one. You never notice when he speaks
of his sheep, it's never plural. My sheep hear my voice. It's always sheep. It's not sheeps. My sheep hear my voice. No, it's
my sheep. It's always in the plural. He
saves us. He saves all his sheep, but he
saves us one at a time. We come to him one at a time.
We don't come to him in groups and flocks. I know at Pentecost
there was 3,000 at one time, but there was individually too.
All those 3,000 were individuals. He saves his sheep. And he sent
Philip down there in the desert because he has a sheep riding
down there and he's reading Isaiah 53. Well, wasn't that lucky? And he lucky, he got a whole,
no, ain't no such, that's one of the dirtiest cuss words there
is, is luck. Ain't no such thing. This valley
of bones is my people, he said, that's Israel. They don't look
like it. You don't look like sons and
daughters of God. You know, when they saw the Lord
Jesus Christ, they said, no, this can't be the Messiah. He
wouldn't look like this. He wouldn't be dressed in a robe
like this. He wouldn't look poor. He wouldn't be among the poor.
He wouldn't look like this. Well, he was. And he is. The Son of God and so are some
of you. You're sons and daughters of God, even though right now
you don't look, there's no halo hanging over your head. Gray
hair. No hair. But you're sons of God. Right
now. Sons of God. That's amazing.
I'm preaching to God's children. That's who I'm preaching to. Then he said he calls me. He
compelled. That word calls means compelled
by authority or force. I'm compelled by God to be here
this morning. I am. I thought yesterday after
Gabe preached, Gabe and Dave and Eric and Larry, you know not to go naming
like that, but I thought, what am I doing here? I did, I thought,
what am I doing here? Why am I here? Well, God knows. God knows it's none of my, I'm
here to preach. I'm here to preach. But He calls me to pass by them
round about, just as Moses did with the serpent on a pole. Now
why did He pass by them round about? Why did He walk by them
like that? Because they couldn't pass by Him. They're dead. They
are dead. It would be foolish of Ezekiel
to request them and ask them to do something, to come, to
do something. They're dead. They're dead. So
God caused him to pass by them. Here's a marvel of grace, though,
that God would pass by or come into the midst of such a people
as we are. That God would look upon dead,
depraved, God-hating sinners like me and you, and that He
would send us a preacher. He would send us His preacher. There's nothing in this scene
attractive about God's elect. Is there? It's a graveyard. It's a graveyard. And notice
here. Behold, they were... Behold,
give attention to this. They were very many in the open
valley, and they were very dry. They've been there for a long
time. Dead a long time. You know, our Lord, when He came
to the tomb of Lazarus, He'd been dead for four days. And
Martha, I believe it was, said to him, said, Lord, he'd been
dead for four days, and by now he stinketh. You know, when the
Lord came, man had been dead for four days, 4,000 years. He
had 1,000 years with the Lord as a day, and he'd been dead
for four days, and you know what he found? He stinketh. Time didn't make
him any better. Time doesn't make us better.
We're not better off now. We're just as rotten as ever. They have been there a long time.
They're dead. And there's one thing for sure. And you don't
have to be a genius to know this. You don't have to be intelligent
to know this. When you walk upon that valley,
you know this. I don't know what happened there,
but I know they lost. I know they lost. They're all
dead. They're all dead. They lost. If we will give a serious look
at human nature and human history, it's evident we lost. We lost. Look over human history. It's
corrupt. It's evil to the core. The older
I get, the more real that scripture gets to me that the whole world
lies in wickedness. It's a wicked place we live in. When Adam met Satan in the garden,
he lost. And when that happened, we lost. You know what we lost? We lost
the way to God. We lost the truth of God. We
lost the life of God. We lost. We lost. And Christ said He came to save
that which was lost. And you know, He is to me and
He is to everyone who believes. He is to us everything we lost.
He's the way, the truth, and the life. He doesn't just show
us the way, He is it. He is truth, and He is life. You know life has a name? Life
has a name. You know what that name is? Jesus
Christ. Life, eternal life, has a name.
And that name is Jesus Christ. So when I think of life, I don't
think of me living, I think of a person. I think of a person. All was lost in Adam, nothing
left. You know, this earth is one great
big cemetery. Something has died on every inch
of this earth. It may just be a fish worm, but
something has died on every inch of this earth. This earth is
a graveyard, it's a cemetery. That's what it is. It's where
the dead are buried. And it says here they were very
dry, they were really dead. And it's been that way a long
time. There's no sign of spiritual life. There's no hand, there's
no bony hand raising up saying, over here. You know, I've watched
these shows where they have battles. You know, I saw the Civil War
shows and they're over here. Nobody, they ain't even moaning. They're dead. I don't know why. People can't get what dead means.
You know, a person can be barely alive. He's barely alive, but
there's nobody barely dead. There's no degrees of dead. Dead
is dead. And they were dead. Oh, let God make us to know that
we were dead in trespasses and sins. That's where we were when
God found us. Dead in trespasses and sins. No sign of spiritual life, no
spiritual intelligence. And that's the only intelligence
that matters, is spiritual intelligence. Excellency of the knowledge of
Jesus Christ. Dead, the image of God marred. You could write Ichabod over
this valley. The glory has departed. And it
ain't coming back unless God does something. Not unless He
does something. You know what the glory of a
man, when God created Adam, you know what his glory was? He was
created in God's image. And sin marred it so much you
can't even hardly see it. Sin took it away. It's very dry, no moisture, no
marrow left in the bones. All life and strength is gone.
And then he said to me, you see, God's got to speak to the preacher
first. He speaks to his man first. If God doesn't speak to me, I
don't have anything to say to you. I have nothing for you if God
doesn't speak to me. Our warrant for preaching is
thus saith the Lord. Not an outline I put together,
but it's God speaking. If I'm truly preaching this morning,
God's speaking. And I hope you hear Him, not
just me. I'm just a voice. It'd be nice if I could just
get down behind this and all you could hear is a voice. And
you wouldn't pay any attention to me standing here. I'm just
a voice. That's all I am. God speaks to His preacher. He
gives us our message, and our message is Christ and Him crucified.
And God asks a question to the preacher. See, the preacher's
got to get it right first. He's got to get it right. Son
of man, can these bones live? God starts with his preacher.
If he doesn't get it right, I can tell you this, the congregation
is not going to get it right. If I tell you a lie, you're going
to go out here believing a lie. If the blind follows the blind,
guess where they both end up? In the same ditch. Here's the question. Can these
bones live? I wrote this down. Can these bones possess life
again? And this morning I scratched
out again on all these. I haven't had it the first yet.
I was born dead. Can sinners love God? Can a wretch
like me who's born with a natural enmity to God, can I love God?
I mean, Peter, do you love me? If the love of God is shed abroad
in the heart, I do, and you do. But that's not natural to us,
is it? Can I possess eternal life? Can I possess, listen,
the life of God? That's what he's talking about.
The life of God. You know, when we speak of eternal
life, we're not talking about how long it is. We're talking
about the life of God. Can this sinner, can this wretch
have the life of God? Can sinners worship God? Can this sinner worship God?
Can sinners ever sing the praises of God from the heart? From the
heart. Can they do it with understanding?
Can the image of God be restored to these dead bones? Well, he gave the best answer
and the only answer. Lord God thou knowest, I don't
know. I tell you, one of the best things that I believe that
God can make me and us who preach, the best thing He can make us
feel is our inability, our inability to do anything. My absolute dependence
is upon God to do something this morning. I prayed this morning
that Lord, Lord speak. Lord, you speak. You do something.
You'll notice something here in this, as we go through this.
God's doing everything. God's doing everything. I answered, Lord, God thou knowest.
Only God can give life. Lord, life comes from you. If it pleases you, these bones
can live. They can if it pleases you. And
again He said to me, preach, prophesy, preach upon these bones. That's what I'm doing this morning.
Preach upon these bones. Don't beg them to do something.
Preach to them. Tell them the truth. Tell them
the truth. And say to them what I say to
you. Oh, you dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord. The first command He gives is
to preach. Preach. It hath pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching, not the preaching of foolishness,
but the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. He commands Ezekiel to preach
to them and tell them this. Hear. And if God commands you
to hear, I assure you, you're going to hear. If He sends that
forth in power, you're going to hear. You're going to hear. Hear! Hear the Word of the Lord.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. What do you
do for your young people? We preach to them! And we preach
to them, and we keep preaching to them. We're not going to entertain
them on their way to hell. We're going to preach to them.
Preach the Gospel to them. One day, by God's grace, if He's
pleased to save them, they're going to hug your neck. My youngest son, he'd been listening
to Bruce Crabtree, he told me the other day, he said, if I
could get a hold of that man, I'd hug him up. You know, that's the way I felt
about Henry Mahan. Boy, after I heard him, I could just hug
him up and not let him go. He's God's man, and he told me
the truth. Oh, preach to them. Faith comes
by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. The first command is
to preach, and the second command is this. Hear. Hear. Hear the Word of the Lord. The
hearing ear and the seeing eye is of God. It's of God. And by faith, we
hear, when we hear, we hear not only the written word of God
being preached, but the living word. You can't separate them.
You can't separate Jesus Christ's living word from the written
word. When we hear the one, we hear the other. That's why it's
so important to take the Bible and just preach from the Word
of God. My mother went to a place some
years ago. When she came back, she talked
to me about it. She said, he didn't even take a Bible in the
pulpit. All he talked about was a newspaper. I said, don't go
back there. Don't go back there. When we hear the Word of the
Lord, we hear Him. We hear life. Life is speaking. Life is speaking. And then God's gonna tell them
what He's gonna do. You know, that's what the gospel is. God
telling us what He's done for us. Who Jesus Christ is, what
He did, who He did it for, and where He is now. That's what
He tells us. God tells us in His Word, He
tells us this, that He's given us all heavenly blessings in
Christ. He tells us He's justified us in Christ. He tells us that
He's forgiven us in Christ. He tells us He's made us a new
creature in Christ. This is what God has done for
us. Isn't that amazing? Salvation's of the Lord, isn't
it? That's the only conclusion you can draw and come to when
you get done or finished reading the Word of God. Salvation's
of the Lord. He purposed to save these bones.
He tells them He's going to give them life and all that pertains
to life. All that pertains to life. Salvation
is not a cooperative effort between me and the Lord. It's the Lord
saving me. It's not a cooperative effort.
It's Him saving me. Larry said it, I did the sinning,
God did the saving. God has given us in Christ life,
spiritual life from the dead. And all that we need, we have
in Jesus Christ. In Him, you're complete. Now,
only a fool would add to something that's complete. Only a fool
would do that. He's justified us in Him. You
know, justification didn't mean anything to me until I found
out I was guilty. It's just a cold, dead doctrine until you find
out you're guilty. It ain't cold and dead anymore. and you find
out He's justified you from all your wickedness and your sins
and your depravity, He's cleared the books. There's not a charge against
me. Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Nobody.
It's God who justified them. And there's nobody above Him.
No one. And listen, he says here, in
verse 5 and 6, and I'll move along here. Thus saith the Lord
God unto these bones. He's speaking to the bones now.
He spoke to his preacher. The preacher's speaking to the
bones, but God's speaking to them now. Behold, I will cause
breath to enter into you, and you shall live. And I will lay
sinews upon you, and bring flesh upon you, and cover you with
skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live. This is what
I'll do, and this is what you shall do. I'm going to do it,
and you're going to live. I'm going to put breath in you,
you shall live, you shall know, when I have done this, that I'm
the Lord. You're going to know me. Christ
said eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He
has sent. It's not knowing facts about
Him. It's knowing Him. It's a relationship. It's to
be made one with God in Christ. Salvation is not going to heaven
and missing hell. It has nothing to do with that.
Salvation has everything to do with this center being made one
with God. Being in union with God again.
Being able to have fellowship with God again. That's salvation. It's not to do with heaven and
hell. It has to do with my relationship
to God in Christ. These false preachers, they use
scare tactics. Have you ever seen these programs
on TV called Scared Straight? You know, they take these young
people to these prisons and they get these prisoners trying to
scare them straight. That's what they do. They take them to torments
of hell. There was a movie they would
show called Burning Hell. They show this to young people.
Scare them into a false hope. Scare them into false peace.
They ought to publicly hang those preachers. You could take 99% of the preachers
in this country, put them in the trash, and this country would
be a better country for them. It'd be a better country. I think
the greatest problem in this country is the pulpit. It's not
the politicians, they're just being who they are. But Satan
is preaching and he's giving people a false hope. I told this. I told my dad this. I told someone
else this. I preached my dad's funeral three
weeks ago. I said, I want to preach your funeral, because
of two reasons. It was an honor. It was an honor. I said, number
one, I don't want them lying on God, and I don't want them
lying on you. So I'm the one that knows you, and I believe
I know God. I mean, that's a powerful statement to make, but I don't
know all there is to know. But I don't want to hear someone
lying on God. No, no, no. Salvation has to do with what
God has done for us, not what we can do. Verse 7, so I preached
as I was commanded. He didn't question the wisdom
of God. Are you serious? Looking at that
dry bones out through there? He just did what God said to
do. He didn't question God's wisdom,
nor did he question God's power. God can save. God has the power
to save. You know it's never a matter
of God's power to save, it's always a matter of God's will.
The leper said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
And he said, I will. Be cloud clean. And he was clean. So I preached as I was commanded.
He didn't try to get those bones to do something or accept Jesus
as their personal Savior. He preached! Just as I'm doing,
as Paul's going to do here in a little bit. God will bless
His Word. He doesn't bless my cute sayings.
He doesn't bless my clever sayings. I said to that congregation I
preached to here a few weeks ago, I read a sign on the way
to going to the funeral, the place to preach Dad's funeral,
and said, are you looking for the rapture? And I told those
people, I said, absolutely not. I said, I am not looking for
the rapture. I'm looking for Jesus Christ to come back and
get me. I'm not looking for an event.
He said, Martha, your brother will rise. She said, I know he'll
rise again in the resurrection. He said, you're looking at the
resurrection. I am the resurrection and the life. The resurrection
is a person. Don't look for the event now
to miss the person. Don't do that. Ezekiel didn't try to put the
bones together. Oh no, he'd have messed up for
sure. No, no, we'd save the wrong ones. We would have saved Esau
and condemned Jacob. But God hated Esau and He loved
Jacob. It didn't look like it, did it?
You would have been impressed with Esau. You would have been
impressed with that old sissy Jacob. That deceiver, that crafty,
that crafty person. But God loved Jacob. There's
a lot of Jacobs in here. Salvation is God's work. He's
the great physician. So I preached as I was commanded,
and there was a noise. And it wasn't me making it either.
And behold, a shaking, and bones came together, bone to bone,
and skin covered them all, but there was no breath in them.
When I did what I was commanded to do, things began to happen.
God began to save. There was a new creation happening,
is what was happening. A new man being made. And there's
a shaking of all false hopes being shaken off, the dust of
death being shaken off, everything that can't be shaken until nothing's
left but Christ. And all you can see is Him. And
the only hope you have is Him. If you have one ounce of a glimmer
of a hope, you still haven't arrived. Not yet. And then He said to me, preach
unto the wind, preach, son of man, preach. Say to the wind,
thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath,
O Spirit of God, breathe upon these slain, slain, slain by
sin, slain by the law, slain that they may live. The whole
works of God, isn't it? He's not telling these bones
at any time to do something. He's telling what God's going
to do. He's called upon the Spirit of God to come and give life. I pray that this morning. Oh,
Spirit of God, breathe upon those dead sinners in here this morning.
Somebody, somebody will say, Lord, I believe. Somebody will
believe God and give Him the glory for it. Ezekiel didn't tell those bones
to do something, he said God's gonna do something. So I preached
as He commanded me. Obedience is priceless. It's
priceless. I did exactly what He told me
to do. And when I did that, breath came in them and they lived.
They lived just as He said they would. Nothing's impossible with
God, nothing's impossible with Him. God can save if He will. Of His own will beget He us with
the Word of truth. And they stood upon their feet,
an exceeding great army. They did as they were commanded.
And He said, These bones, they are My elect. That's what He's
saying there in verse 11. They say, We are sinful and there's
no hope in us. They didn't say that until He
gave them life. You know, repentance is the evidence
of life. It's not the cause of it. It's not the cause of life. Not until we have life do we
have repentance. I want you to listen to this.
I put this in our bulletin a week or so ago. Not until the Lord
saves us do we know we were lost. Not until the Lord gives us life
do we know we were dead. And not until the Lord gives
us light do we know we were in darkness. God has to save us
for us to know this. And here's the good news. I'm
going to wind it down. Tell them. Tell them. Behold, O my people,
tell them I'm going to open your graves. He has raised us up in
Christ. We have a spiritual resurrection
in Christ. When he arose from the dead, we arose. When he ascended
on high, we ascended on high. He let the right hand of the
Father. We are seated there right now. There comes a time we experience
that. Real resurrection from the dead.
A real spiritual resurrection from the dead. And then one day,
our bodies are going to come out of the grave. And we're going
to have a new body. Spiritual. A body like that of
Christ. A powerful body. I'm going to
get rid of these wrinkles. I'm going to get rid of this
old man. Neil Young, old man, look at
my life. I'm a lot like you. Well, apple
doesn't fall far from the tree. But we're going to have a new
life, the life of God. Like begets like. That which
is born of the Spirit is Spirit. You're going to have the life
of God. Partakers of the divine nature is what we're going to
do. And here's the good news. Tell them, I'm going to open
your grave and I'm going to bring you out into the land of Israel,
the land that I promised to you, to your fathers. Death has no
more dominion over you. Sin has no dominion over you.
You're not under the law, you're under grace and you're going
to live. And you're going to live in the land I've prepared
for you. Christ said, I've got a prepared place for you. When
I do that, I'm going to come again and receive you to myself.
God's going to bring the true Israel of God into the promised
land, into His presence. I don't know where heaven is,
but I tell you this, wherever Jesus Christ is, that's where
it is. Paradise is where my Lord is. And you're going to know when
I do this, when I save you, when I give you life, you're going
to know I did it. I the Lord did it. It wasn't me and you.
It wasn't me and you working together. I saved you. And we are going to give Him
the glory forever and ever and ever. He said, I'm going to put my
spirit in you and you'll live and I'm going to place you in
your own land. I've got a place for you. I've got a place for
you. It's your own land. Enter into
the kingdom prepared for you by your Heavenly Father. And
you're going to know that I, the Lord, I spoke it, I performed
it, I did it. I did it. He did it all. All
to Him I owe. Not until then shall we know
how much we owe. Can these bones live? Absolutely. by the grace and power of God
through Jesus Christ. You're looking at a man, now
listen, I'm gonna stop. You're looking at a man that's
never gonna die. Boy, when I realized that, I actually, I think I began
to live and started enjoying life. I'm not gonna die. Christ
said, he that believes in me shall never die. Paul, we're
never gonna die. This body's going to go to the grave. I'm
never going to taste death. I'm going to close my eyes and
I'm going to wake up just like I did this morning. Just going
to be asleep. Going to be a sweet sleep. I'm not going to die. And you who believe, forget about
dying. You're not. Forget about it.
You're going to live. You're going to live.