If you have your Bibles open
at chapter 37, I want to read just a few verses. The hand of
the Lord was upon me. Oh, but the hand of the Lord
might be upon us today. Somebody says, don't believe
that happens anymore. Well, my friend, you just really
are not in a position to make that judgment. It does happen. The hand of the Lord does come.
upon his people. And Ezekiel says, and he carried
me out in the Spirit of the Lord. Wonderful place to be in the
Spirit of the Lord. John the Revelator was in the
Spirit on the Lord's Day, you remember. And by the way, every
day is the Lord's Day, isn't it? So it's wonderful to be in
the Spirit at all times. And sent me down, Ezekiel said,
in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. and caused
me to pass by them round about, and 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? Son of man, can these bones
that you're looking upon, these dry bones that are very, very
dry, can they live? And I answered, Ezekiel said,
O Lord God, Thou knowest. And that's the best answer faith
can give. There are times when we can say
no more. O Lord God, Thou knowest. And again He said unto me, Prophesy
upon 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 will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin,
and put breath in you, and you shall live, and ye shall know
that I am the Lord." I wanted to find the first and
the primary object of this chapter, and I believe that the first
and primary meaning of this text was to encourage the Jews to
expect their restoration from the Babylonian captivity at that
time. And now at this time of the utterance
of this prophecy, they were scattered, that is the Jewish people, among
the cities of the Babylonians without any existence as an independent
nation. But as the bones in the vision
only needed the quickening process described in our text this morning
to become a living army, so the Jews only needed the interposition
of God on their behalf to become an independent nation. And there
are some who believe that that's what happened in 1949 when Israel
became a nation. And there are others that believe
that this prophecy is not yet fulfilled. that the prophecy
will yet, that it's futuristic, that it will be fulfilled in
the future. But I believe this morning that this is a timely
message. I believe that it is a message
that has never spent itself entirely. It make any difference how many
times it's been used. We know that the Word of God
is never spent on any one situation. That the Word of God is always
applicable and can be applied in many and various ways, many
and sundry ways, to various situations. And I wanted to just illustrate
that a little bit. First of all, let me say that
I believe that this portion of Scripture could be used to talk
about the state of the professing church in any day that you want
to talk about. Because I believe, even as it
is today, many, many ages, it's been deplorable, and it's deplorable
in our day. We cannot help but see that.
If we got an eye for it, we can see that the church is cold,
that the church is lukewarm in our day. At its best, it's lukewarm. Most of those bodies that meet
together on the face of the earth this morning, there's very little
life in them. very little real, sincere, down-to-earth
spiritual life in those churches. And if you were to examine it
carefully, you'd find that the biggest part of those people
that attend these churches, that they have no idea about what
the preacher's talking about, and they certainly, in most cases,
don't even have a preacher that's talking about anything that they
ought to spend the time listening to. Now it's very important that
we understand that the Lord needs to intervene on the behalf of
the churches in our day, and only the Lord can. Now this vision,
I think, is very descriptive of a state of lukewarm and spiritual
lethargy that's in our churches. Now when this question, and it
can be sorrowfully asked, can these bones live? Can these churches
come out of the mess they're in? Can they be delivered from
their deplorable state, lethargic state? Can that dull, can that
dry, can that dead preacher wake up to have a living power with
God and to be able to speak to men as a dying man, to dying
people with power? Can he do that? Can cold church
members be set to glow with a holy heat? Can it happen? Can we all
be in real earnest? Can we ever become self-sacrificing
Christians? Will the Lord again ever appear
to these people and revive them out of their spiritual sloth?
Will it ever happen? Will you ever see revival in
the land? The question is, can these bones
live? Can these bones live? I mean
the bones of the people that make up our churches. We need
the quickening power of Jesus' name to come upon the churches
that profess to be the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
I believe we can. I believe there is hope. I believe
that revival could break out. I believe we can be revived by
the preaching of the Word of God, accompanied by the coming
of the heavenly breath from the four winds. If that happens,
there will be a revival. I read a little story this last
week, and some of you might have read it, I don't know, but there
was a church that had a congregation of about 2,000 people, and one
Sunday morning they were all gathered there in their plush
sanctuary, and there were two, after the service had just ready
to start, there was two masked gunmen that came in to the building
with their automatic weapons, and they said to the congregation,
they said, everybody in this building that will take a bullet
for Jesus, you stay behind, and the rest of you are dismissed.
You can leave. And all of the choir left, and
everybody left out of the building except 20 people, as the story
goes, and the preacher. And whenever everybody was gone
but 20 people and the preacher, why the masked gunman took the
mask off and said, now preacher, I got rid of all you hypocrites,
you can begin your service. Well, now that makes you stop
and think a little bit. That really does. How many people
are there in our churches that, as you might say, would take
a bullet for Christ? How many are sincere? How many
are absolutely in earnest about what they claim to believe? How
many are genuinely the people of God? How many are sold out,
lock, stock and barrel to the Lord Jesus Christ? How many would
lay down their lives for the cause of Christ and be faithful
unto death for the Lord Jesus. Now beloved, you can answer that
question. You can answer that question. I'm telling you the
state of the professing church is deplorable. Then also, I think
we all feel this, we like David in Psalm 119 verse 25 and also
in verse 37, said, My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken thou me
according to thy word. Oh, we're like David in that
psalm. We need quickening. David was a child of God, but
he felt lifeless. He said, my soul cleaves to this
dust. I'm so worldly minded. I'm so
worldly in all my ways. Oh Lord, quicken me according
to thy word. And then in verse 37, he said,
turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken thou me in
thy way. Quicken thou me in thy way. Make
me alive in your ways, oh Lord. The poet said, oh, life of life,
be life to me. You say, well, how in the world
are we ever going to get this revival to make these dry bones live,
these churches come back to life? Well, old Gypsy Smith, he was
a revivalist, and I don't agree with everything he believed,
but he said some good things. And one thing that he said that
struck me very much was that He said, if you want to, somebody
said, well, how do you have revival, Gypsy? And he, as he was asked
to explain, he answered, you lock yourself in a private room,
you take a piece of chalk, and you draw a circle on the floor,
and you get down on your knees inside the circle, and you pray
God to start a revival inside this circle. And when this prayer
is answered, the revival will be on. The revival will be on. And I say to you that if we need
quickening, that revival needs to start with us as individuals. And I believe as it starts with
us as individuals, that it will be on, brother and sister. Now,
beloved, we cannot serve a living God dead. We cannot. One of the
reasons why, and I think I might have mentioned this to you one
time, that they could not bring in the Old Testament a fish to
sacrifice on the altar was because they couldn't get it there alive.
It would not live. It had to be something that was
living. In Romans 12 and 1, it says, I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present yourselves a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. that you present yourself a living
sacrifice. It's people that are alive that
can serve the Lord. Now, beloved, I believe in being
revived and restored, we must be made alive in faith, and faith
and life goes together. When a person is revived in faith,
I mean they believe God, they trust God. They quit complaining
and murmuring, and they begin to look past themselves into
what it is the Lord would have them to do, and they want to
live by faith and confidence in God. I say we must be made
alive in faith. Then in service, in service to
God, we need to be made alive. Oh, if we were alive, wouldn't
we be looking for something to do? I remember old Sam Jones,
he preached meetings that they called quitting meetings. And
he preached mainly to Christians about quitting, quitting sins,
various sins that was hindering them in their lives. And one
morning after a meeting, there was a lady, a sophisticated woman,
well-dressed lady that came out of the meeting house and old
Sam said, what is it that you're quitting? And she said, well,
I tell you, Mr. Jones, I'm quitting doing nothing. I've been doing nothing and I'm
quitting doing nothing. And I think, my friend, service
unto the Lord. Service unto God. I think some
of us around here ought to quit doing nothing, don't you? And
begin to serve the Lord. I remember reading one time about
a lady, she was an old lady, a widow woman, in Oakland, California. And she wanted to be in service
to the Lord. She wanted to do something. But
she couldn't walk very well. She couldn't get out and be going
out and talking to people or attending meetings or anything
like that. And she had one talent. She was
able to play the piano and play it quite well. And so she got
the idea, and I believe it was the Lord, it was a blessing to
me to read about it, and she got the idea that she'd call
up sick folks. She would put an ad in the paper,
first of all, and give her a telephone number and tell people that she
would be willing to play a hymn for them, for somebody who's
ill, somebody's sick, shut in, that they just call her, no cost,
no charge, just call her, she'd play a hymn for them. And so
when people called her, she would say, well, what hymn do you want
played? And she would play that hymn on the piano. And many,
many times after she had played the hymn, the people wanted to
talk. and they wanted to talk about
their situation and their needs, and this woman was able through
that to be a witness, and she said that was one of the most,
that she just praised God for an opportunity to serve the Lord,
be of some service to the Almighty God. And how wonderful that is,
that there is, that God can revive us in service, in order that
we could do His will. Now also in prayer, oh to be
stirred up, how we need to be revived in this business of prayer,
need to be brought back, restored. We need God to intervene. We
need God to cross our path and make our life so miserable and
so empty. Listen to me! Until we would
bring our emptiness to His fullness and we begin to beg God and pray
and plead with God to undertake for us. My friend, the God of
the Bible is a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God. The
God of the Bible is a God that is willing and able to give you. He said you have not because
you ask not. And we need to be stirred up
as long as we got everything we need, as long as we're doing
fine, as long as everybody is healthy and everything is going
good. Then we don't need, you see,
to be stirred up. Then we don't need to pray, so
we won't. It's when the Lord stirs us up.
It's when He crosses our path. It's when we cannot see tomorrow
and we don't know anything about the future that we begin to pray. We don't know anything about
it anyway. Sometimes we think we do, but we don't really know
anything about it. So we need to be stirred up to
lay hold of the Lord, catch hold of Him, and that's revival. And
then also in devotion. Now beloved, I hope that you're
devoted to the Lord. I hope that most of you are.
that you're truly devoted to him and that you would give him
your very best. I hope that you are. Queen Mary, she used to get out
and she would dress up like a normal person, just like an average
person and she'd walk the streets and go around and just get out
but she would camouflage herself and dress up so people couldn't
tell who she was. So one day she was out in the
rain and a storm came up And she had no umbrella with her.
She wasn't expecting it to rain. And so she went up on a porch
and was standing under the porch for a while. And then directly
she knocked on the door. And a lady came to the door and
she said, could I borrow an umbrella? Didn't tell her who she was or
anything. The woman of the house She thought for a minute and
said, well, you know, to herself, I have a real good one, almost
a brand new one, but I am not going to give some lady here
I don't even know that brand new umbrella. So she went to
the closet and dug out one that had a couple of holes in it and
a stave or two broke in it and brought it out and gave it to
her and apologized to the woman for it. And so the queen took
the umbrella unknowns, the woman didn't know who she was and went
off. Well, the next day there was
a fella came to this woman's door, knocked on the door and
brought a letter and brought the umbrella back and said, the
Queen wants me to thank you personally for this umbrella and here's
a gift because you were so generous to her. And that woman, it broke
her heart. She said to thank, to thank that
I could give the Queen my best and I didn't do it. To think
that I was in a position to give the best and I wouldn't do it.
I'll tell you what, you're in position. My friend, I'm talking
about devotion. I'm talking about devotion. You're
in a position to give the best you have to the Lord and to lay
it down to the feet of King Jesus and submit yourself to Him. Oh
my friend, the very best that you have You're in position to
give it, and I trust God that we'll do that. Well, now, in
order to illustrate further, I've not got yet to where I want
to be in this message, and these are just the opening remarks.
I may not get through it today. I told Mike last night I'd have
to preach another sermon on this to be able to get it all in.
But this has these spiritual applications. It certainly has
the application of the Church in its backslidden state, it
being restored and revived by the power of God, by the Word
of God, through the wind of the Spirit. And then we also note
in the Word of God, in order to back up and support the fact
that the Scripture has spiritual applications, the fiery serpent
you remember in the book of Numbers and I believe it is chapter 21
verses 4 through 9 you remember that Moses when the people murmured
and complained the Lord sent fiery serpents among them and
they were bitten they died and in the New Testament we find
in John chapter 3 that the Lord Jesus that there John says that
the Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness. You see Moses was commanded of
God to make a brazen serpent, to make a serpent. He made one
out of brass and he held it up and everybody that was bitten
could look to that brazen serpent and be healed just like that.
They'd be healed of the snake bite that would kill them if
they didn't look. And so the scripture says that
if the Son of Man, that He, as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting
life. We see that as a spiritual application
of that story out of Numbers 21. And then also we read in
the scriptures about the rock which Moses smoked and then water
came out of it to satisfy the thirst of the people. And then
we read in 1 Corinthians 10 where the Apostle Paul said that rock
that those people drank out of was the rock that followed them
and he said that rock was Christ. It was Christ. So you see there's
a spiritual application of a story in the Old Testament. And then
you remember Jonah who was swallowed by the fish, by the huge fish.
And you remember what happened. He was in the fish's belly three
days and three nights. He was spewed out on dry land.
And you know that according to the scriptures in the New Testament
that this was an illustration of the death, the burial, and
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you see
how that story in the Old Testament has a spiritual application. All right. And this also can
be used, this story that we have here, is a picture of the resurrection.
The general resurrection. The resurrection that's going
to take place at the last day at the sound of the trumpet.
Oh, isn't it amazing? Marvel not at this, the scripture
says. All that are in the graves are going to hear his voice,
and they're going to come forth out of the graves. There's going
to be a time when the Israel of God, the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, is going to be resurrected. out of their graves. Some of them have been in those
graves for centuries. Some of the members of the living
members of the family of God will be raised, and they'll come
out of their graves. And so I believe this can be
a very useful type of that. And then we have here, and I'll
finally get to it, we have here, I think, which is a picture of
the, we have here a picture of the restoration of dead souls
to spiritual life. And that's where I wanted to
get. I've been all this time trying to get to this place.
This is a picture of the restoration of dead souls brought out of
sin's death unto spiritual life. Now beloved, let me say first
of all that men are just like these bones. They're just exactly
like these bones. All unconverted men and women
are like these dry bones. They're dead and they're dry. Will and power have both departed
from them and the sap and mara has gone out of their bones.
They are dead and they are dry. They're very dry. For a long
time these bones in our store this morning have lain under
the scorching heat of an eastern sun till they were ready to crumble
into dust. They were dry. Sad as the picture
is, Beloved, it is not overdrawn. Scriptural testimony is true.
Spiritual death reigns undisturbed in this world. It reigns undisturbed. Now, beloved, we're living in
a graveyard. You didn't know that, did you?
We're living in a graveyard. Nine out of ten people are spiritually
dead. They're dead. It's against the
law to bury them, but they're dead. They're graveyard dead
spiritually. Well, what was this scene that
met Ezekiel's eye? He saw human nature wrecked and
he saw it ruined. It was wrecked and ruined. Mark
it down. Not human nature spoiled of its
beauty. No, no, no, my friend. Not human
nature sick. Not human nature dying. He saw
human nature dead. Dead. Dislocated. Paul said in
Ephesians 2, 1, You hath he quickened, you hath he made alive from this
dead state. You've been brought out. You
that are spiritually alive, you have been restored. The breath
of God's Spirit is blown upon you and you live unto the Lord. Now the bones were scattered
beyond the power of human reconstruction. There was no way that any human
being, Ezekiel or any other man, be he whoever he may be, regardless
of who he might profess to be, he could not reconstruct these
bones. It was impossible that any human
being could help in this situation. There was no way to do it. Well,
my friend, how do things appear to us in this world? What of this world in which we're
living? How does things appear to us?
Do you have enough life in you that you know death when you
see it? Know spiritual death when you
see it? When you come upon it? When you
look at it? When you look at it in the face?
When you see it in its loathsome corruption? Do you have the ability? Well, my friend, I know there
are some people that are looking at this world through rose-tinted
glasses. There are some people that don't
see what is the matter in this world. Do you know that you could
not recognize anybody in this valley? You couldn't recognize
a one. You couldn't recognize any of
the soldiers in the vision. Now beloved angels look down
from heaven and they cannot recognize man who was made in the image
of God. They're not able to recognize
the image of God in man. What do they see? Bloated drunkards?
They see debased men and women? They see debased specimens of
mankind? Men and women who are made in
the image of God? but they have corrupted themselves
and they're dead. They're addicted to drugs, addicted
to everything you can imagine and some things you can't even
imagine. People are addicted to, oh, Ezekiel was not allowed
to shut his eyes to the true state of affairs here, the true
state of the case. Now beloved, listen, man is in
a horrible condition. He's dead in sin. He's cut off
from the life of God. He has not the fear of God in
his heart. And there's no desire in his
heart to know the Lord. No desire to come to Christ that
he might have life. And beloved, no little decision,
no walking the aisle and shaking the preacher's hand will do.
It takes something, a whole lot more, as it did in this case
here in the vision that Ezekiel had. Now in order to realize
the fact, Ezekiel had to take a number of ghastly walks that
I can imagine every mortal man took. Here he is. He has to go
out and walk through this valley of dry bones. I said a little
while ago that you and I are living in a cemetery. We got
dead people all around us. I mentioned here the other day
in a message that you probably got some dead people sitting
right near you, where you're sitting this morning. Only God
knows. We don't know, but God knows. But we're walking in the midst
of dead, dry bones that are hopeless apart from God's intervention. Shall we ignore the true state
of affairs? Now my brother, my sister, if
you are not inclined to agree with what I'm saying, may God
open our eyes. There wasn't any question in
Ezekiel's mind, do you think, when he was walking out through
this valley of dry bones, that things were in an awful mess.
and things were beyond him. Can these bones live? Oh Lord
God, thou knowest. You only know whether they can
or whether they can't. It's past our ability. We can't
do anything for them. And we're not able to restore
them. Neither can we restore you. May God open our eyes, brothers
and sisters. Shall we ignore the true state
of affairs? Will shutting up our eyes to
festering sores heal these sores? Absolutely not. Shedding up our
eyes to death, is it going to bring life? No, no, no, no, no.
Some people are not interested in trying to deal with people
in a scriptural way. Now, beloved, this view of things,
as we see this valley of dry bones, as we see men and women
in their spiritual state of death, This drives us to conclusion
that there is but one power, only one power, and that power
is the power of God, that power is the power that must come from
God. Now beloved, what was it here?
Well, Ezekiel saw something that you and I see, most of us at
least, if we've got any spiritual eyesight at all, if the eyesight
of the Spirit of God has been put upon our eyes, if we've been
awakened to the Word of God and to the truths of Scripture, And
oh my friend, I wish sometimes that we put aside any of the
preconceived notions that we might have about things concerning
man and God, and we just come back to the naked Word of God.
And we begin to read the Word, we begin to study the Word of
God, and see what the Bible really says. Well, all flesh The Scripture
says it's corrupt. It has corrupted itself on the
face of the earth. The Bible says that man is born
into sin and he's shapen in iniquity. David said, in sin did my mother
conceive me. The Word of God says there's
none righteous, no not one. Now beloved, it's important to
maintain the doctrine or the teaching of the Word of God and
it's important that we maintain it now. My friend, if we do not
maintain, if we take away the doctrine of depravity, then there's
no need for God's elective grace. There's no need for sovereignty.
There is no need for particular redemption. There is no need
for the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ if man is not to
pray. If everybody sitting around you
this morning is alive as you are, and you say you're spiritually
alive, then what's the use of me getting up here preaching
about dry bones in the valley? Why preach about restoration
if everybody's alive already? Well, everybody's not alive already
Men are dead in sin. Now then, I say to you, we need
to maintain this doctrine. You remember when the Lord Jesus,
in Matthew 9, when he went in, he was called to come, the little
girl had died, and he went in and they mocked him. He said,
she's not dead, she's sleeping. Well, she was dead physically,
but she was asleep in the Lord and so the Lord Jesus meant to
bring her back to life and he did he raised her from the dead
but they laughed him to scorn and you know people say well
preacher if people are in the condition that you say they are
then what are you doing preaching to them? You can't do anything
for Him, and I admitted that a few minutes ago. We can't do
anything for Him. How can we do anything for Him?
Ezekiel, Ezekiel, what are you doing out here in this valley
of dry bones? Ezekiel, don't it bother you
somewhat that you're out here in this valley of dry bones and
you don't have an ounce of strength to do anything for these people?
And the Lord's looking, the Lord is talking about, He's talking
about 11. And you can't give life to an
insect. Much less give life to a dead sinner. And what, don't
that bother you, Ezekiel, to look upon this? Well, no, Ezekiel,
he's God's servant, and he knows something about the power of
God. And so he's not ashamed to be out here talking to a valley
of dry bones. And I'm not ashamed to be up
here this morning talking to you, you sinners here, lost sinners,
dead sinners, incapable of saving yourself and incapable of rising
to the place where you can look to the cross of Calvary and be
saved. This text presents us with an
illustration of human instrumentality. God generally employs in the
work of quickening dead sinners, the preaching of the gospel.
Well, the Lord said to Ezekiel, He said, you prophesy unto these
bones, prophesy upon these bones, and you say unto them, O ye dry
bones, hear the word of the Lord. You preach to these dry bones,
and tell them to hear the word of the Lord. Well, The Gospel,
1 Corinthians 1 and 21 says, 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 to believe. Preach to them! Ezekiel prophesied unto these
dry bones. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them to believe. James 1 18 says, Of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth. With the word
of truth. Our business is with the commandment. Our business is not with the
results. Now you better write that down.
You better write that down. I'm telling you that preachers
get discouraged. Preachers want to quit. Preachers
want to back off. Preachers feel inadequate and
they ought to. Preachers feel they have no sufficiency. Preachers feel they can't accomplish
anything and they cannot. They cannot. But our business
is with the commandment. Our business is not with the
result. You see, Ezekiel could prophesy. He could prophesy. He could say,
O tribals, hear the word of the Lord. He could do that. He was
able to do it. He had the ability to do that.
God had given him the ability to do that. And he preached as
if they could hear him. That's right. Oh, the scripture
says, hear ye deaf, look ye blind that ye may see. And I'm here
this morning and I say to you, hear ye deaf, hear ye deaf, look
you blind that you may see. I'm not ashamed to tell you to
do what you cannot do. I'm here to tell you what God
tells me to tell you what to do. You need to look, you need
to hear, the Word of the Lord. Well, there's some other things
here we need to look at. We're told to go preach to every
creature. Now God honors preaching. He
does. He honors preaching. 2 Thessalonians
2, 13 and 14, Paul said we're bound to give thanks unto God,
brethren, beloved, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto? whereunto He called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory that's in the Lord Jesus
Christ. God honors preaching. Paul said
in Romans 1.16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is
the power of God unto salvation. God has been pleased to link
His power to save sinners with the preaching of the gospel.
He's been pleased to put power in the gospel. And our business
is with the command. It is not with the results. The results are in God's hand. Now listen to me, friend. If
you stay away from the ministry of the gospel and lock up your
Bible, I think you'll be putting away the instruments that God
will use to reach your soul. You must listen and stay near
the message. Listen to the message. Hear the
message. Ezekiel prophesied unto these
dry bones. Read the Word of God. There's
power. The Bible says that every scripture
is given by inspiration of God. Scripture says that the Word
is quick. That means it's alive. And it's
operative. And it's powerful. I'm talking
about a miracle when I'm talking to you about Ezekiel's dry bones.
I'm talking about something's got to happen here. Something's
got to happen. I mean these dry bones ain't
never going to come together. There's no movement. There's
no sound. No life. Ain't nothing going
to happen until God moves. And God's going to do something.
When the Word is preached, when Ezekiel prophesies, God's going
to do something. It's coming to pass, my friend.
It's coming to pass. He stuck to the message that
God gave him. Dare not preach any other. Just
prophesy. Speak the word of the Lord. Don't
get out here talking about something that don't amount to a hill of
beans. Don't go off on a tangent. Don't be running around here
like a fanatic. Don't be foolish. Stick to the book. Stick to the
word, the living word of God. Paul said, if any man preach
any other gospel, let him go to hell when the Lord comes.
Serious business. Let him preach the gospel. Woe
is me, he said, if I preach not the gospel. Now then, there's
something else I want you to understand. What did he preach
about? So beloved, we're not to argue.
with God. We're not to argue. Look at verse
7. It says, And so I prophesied as I was commanded. That's it.
So I preached. So I preached. That's what he
did, Conrad. He didn't argue with God saying,
well, it's an impossible situation. Well, at least, God, let's wait
until the sun goes down anyway. That sun is so hot down there,
ain't nobody ever gonna make a move in that hot sun. Just,
let's wait. Let's wait till better circumstances.
No, no, no, no. So, he said, so I prophesied
as I was commanded. I did what I was told. That's
what he's saying. I just done what I was told. Well, what did he preach about?
Well, I think he preached the essentials. It's a short sermon, but it's
all about life. All about life. He saw death,
he preached life. He saw ruin, he preached remedy.
No entertainment and essays for dry bones, brother, sister. No,
no, no, no, no. Not here to entertain you on
your way to hell. No, no, no, no. You missed the point. That's
not what this is about. We're not here to entertain you.
My friend, nothing is going to do you any good except the interposition
of God, the intervention of God. God's power coming upon your
poor soul. God visiting you with resurrection
power. We must, listen, we must be affected
and touched by the same power that raised up our Lord Jesus
Christ from the dead. And I believe it happens in services
just like this. If you preach, my brother, my
sister, we need to understand that those who preach, and I
don't believe women are called to preach, I'm not saying that.
I'm addressing men and women here. You who preach, let us
all be aware of this, that we are to preach the essentials.
Preach the essentials. Stick to it. cleansing by the
blood, God's atonement, God's reconciliation. We don't need moral improvement
without life. They got to be living people.
Preach God's power into salvation. Won't do any good to get men
a new suit of clothes. They need life. Won't do any
good to give the prodigal son a better job in a poor country.
He needs life. He needs to come back to the
Father's house. I insist on it. A living people, the people of
God are a living people. They're alive. Death reigns in
this valley. But whenever grace comes, King
Grace will reign to life. And wherever the grace of God
comes, it will bring life. Stick to the essentials. Well,
let us apply to Ezekiel's resort. He prayed, he preached, as commanded. Now he must leave results with
the Spirit of God. He prays in faith. Come, O breath
of God! Come, O breath of God! He had
a thus saith the Lord, didn't he? God said, you pray that this
breath the breath will come and they'll live so you had a thus
saith the Lord when I come here and I preach believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved when I say believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved I have a thus saith
the Lord for that a thus saith the Lord When I say, look unto
Him and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, I would thus say
of the Lord for that. The Lord tells you to look. You
say, well I don't understand this business of human responsibility
and the sovereignty of God. I don't understand it all either,
but I believe in both of them. God, He must give you faith,
but He won't ever believe for you. I'm telling you the truth. He must give you the gift of
faith, but he won't believe for you. He won't. Nobody believes except those
that are regenerated by the Spirit of God. And they're enabled to
believe, but they do believe. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, shall not come into condemnation. He
is passed from death into life. Been a lot of people confused
about these things. Aaron Burr. who was the third vice president
of the United States of America, was reared in a very godly home.
And he was often admonished by his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards,
to confess Christ, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But
he refused to listen. And he said, I want nothing to
do with God. And he went on to say that he
wished that the Lord would just flat leave him alone, just leave
him alone. Well he had many ups and downs
in his political career and he was involved in continuous strife
and when he was 48 years old he killed Alexander Hamilton
in a duel. He lived 32 more years unhappy,
miserable, downhill, downhill and one night he told a group
of his friends when he was very much worn out with life. He said 60 years ago I told God
that if he would let me alone I would let him alone. I told
him if you just let me alone I'll let him alone and God has
not bothered about me since. Ehrenberg got just exactly what
he wanted. Exactly what he wanted. I'm not
interested he said I'm not interested in God. I'm not interested in
the things of God. My friend, if you take a no-care
attitude about whether you ever live or not spiritually, that
is prophetic of your eternal doom. That's right. You need
to sit out on the edge of your seat. God, if you're speaking
to men, God, if you're coming with life around in this building,
if you're here and you got any life, stop. Stop it, my dear. Stop where I am. Stop where I
am. Don't pass me by. Pass me not,
O gentle Savior. Pass me not. Fall upon others
your calling. Oh, do not pass me by. Do not
pass me by. Some of you are taking it just,
you know, hey. Preacher preached again this
morning. Preacher preached. He got excited. He showed somewhat that this
thing was real. It's real, my friend. He gives
life. And you gotta get it from Him.
He'll have to come and give it to you. Just like He did these
bones. Breath came, and they live. Well, let me say just a couple
things more about this divine agency employed in the work of
quickening the dead in trespasses and sin. The power of the Holy
Spirit, I said earlier, takes the same power that raised up
Jesus Christ from the dead to restore a dead sinner. That's
right. Anytime anybody got saved, when
God saved this old sinner, it was resurrection power there
that restored this sinner. I was made meat, I was translated,
don't you see, out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of God's dear Son. The power of God was there. And
God translated my soul out of darkness into light. It takes
resurrection power to restore dry bones. The result of this
prophecy is very clear in verse 7 and 8. So I prophesied, and
as I prophesied, there was a noise, 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, they looked more respectable.
they look more respectable, but they were still dead. And that's,
you know, a lot of people come to church that way. Dressed real
well. They look respectable. All well,
well fitted out. Look good. I was telling somebody
this morning that three stages to life. Youth, middle age, and
you're looking good. You're looking good. But anyway,
these bones weren't looking so good until the Lord brought sinew
upon them. Flesh covered them. But there was no breath in them. You look mighty respectable this
morning, this congregation. I'm not saying that some of us
couldn't use a little bit of touch-up. I'm not saying that.
But you're looking mighty respectable. Is there any breath in you? any
spiritual breath. Is there a breath? A breath of
life, is it there? Are you a Christian? Are you
a believer? Alright, then the Lord said in verse 9, you prophesy
to the wind, prophesy son of man, say to the wind, come from
the four winds, O breath, breathe upon this land that you may live.
So I prophesy, not only to people, but to the wind. As he commanded
it, the breath came into them. came into them, O heavenly breath,
John chapter 3 says, that the wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, nor whether it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit, the wind of the Spirit of God. How wonderful
it would be if somebody was to catch a breath this morning. And that breath would be a heavenly
breath. He'd be born again. Be alive spiritually. How wonderful
that would be. How wonderful. Well, it's the
Lord's work. There are three persons necessary
in the salvation of a sinner. Seems to me. Preacher, a hearer. The Word of God and
a hearer. Preacher preaching the Word.
and God who gives the increase. And that seems to me to be exactly
what took place here. Had a preacher, and these dead
bones heard, came together. God who gives the increase gave
them breath, and they lived. That's what I got to say about
these dry bones. I'm not saying there couldn't
be a whole lot more said. I'm just saying that's what I
got to say. and I hope this morning that God will fix it so you'll
never forget as long as you live hearing this sermon on these
dry bones that you'll remember it because it is so timely and
there are some here this morning that oh I would to God I would
to God that God would just come down these brethren are praying
that the Lord will visit you all I'm praying that the Lord
will visit you. I have prayed earnestly that
the Lord might let a word we say fall to the ground, that
He'll own it, and that there'll be some of you that are careless
and indifferent, heard over and over again. Never yet. Never yet. Well, it's in the
Lord's hands. You're in God's hands. May the
Lord give you life enough to live until you
can sit under the joyful sound again. There was a fella this
week, you know, got up one morning out there in Sun Prairie, 44
years old, started his old pickup, started in toward Great Falls,
got in a fog bank, slick roads, and he pulled his truck over
and he got out and started scraping on the windshield. Another fella
came up on him, 16, miles an hour, young fella, 19 years old,
fella was in a hurry to get to work, I suppose, in an awful
hurry, driving in that fog, hit the pickup, went over this fella,
threw this guy 200 feet, killed him. You don't ever know, from
one week to the next, whether you're ever going to hear the
joyful sound again. Be careful, remember old Aaron
Burr. Just remember old Aaron Burr. Remember him. because there's
a lot of people just like him. Lord, leave me alone. Lord, leave
me alone. And I want to tell you what,
if God leaves you alone, it's over. It's curtains. It's curtains. You better be praying he don't
leave you alone. God, don't leave me alone. Don't abandon me. Don't give up on me, Lord. Don't
give up on me. Father, in the name of our lovely
Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, we do commit this service into
Thy hand. Use the message for Thy glory, for Your honor, and
Your praise. And may Jesus Christ, Lord, be
received by some poor soul here today. He's a stranger. May they
take Him in. I pray it for His sake, for His
glory.