Dry Bones Proclaim The Word

I think the first application
of this portion of scripture is very clearly revealed in verses
11 and 12, when he says, Then he said unto me, Son of man,
these bones of the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say,
our bones are dry, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off for
our parts. Remember the Lord has revealed
to his people, if you're familiar with this book, he's revealed
to his people that he will yet restore his people unto the land
that he gave them. And he tells them that he's going
to save all Israel in a day through the mouth of the Apostle Paul
in the book of Romans. He tells them there's going to
be a great gathering of his people back to the land of Israel. And
he tells them that, as it were in verse 12, he says, Therefore
you prophesied and saved them, thus saith the Lord God. Behold,
O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come
up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.
In other words, the Lord says here, it's going to be just like
a great resurrection. I'm going to bring my people
from from all nations of the earth, and as it were, I'm going
to bring them up out of their graves, and I'm going to bring
them back and restore them unto the land which I promised them.
And then he said in verse 13, that ye shall know that I am
the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought
you up out of your graves. There's going to come a time
when the nation of Israel is going to become tremendously aware
of the fact that their God is God, he's the God of the whole
earth. Not only is he the God of the
Israelites, but that he's God of the whole earth and that he's
the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. And there's going
to come a time of great worship of this God when his people are
restored to the land. But now that's the first application
of this text. But I know that it also has a
spiritual application. And it is upon the spiritual
application this morning that we wish to speak. Now, in order
to show you what I mean by spiritual application, I want you to think
with me just a moment. You remember that God brought
up his people out of the land of Egypt. And out in the wilderness,
they experienced, on one occasion, forest serpents coming among
them. And you remember on that occasion, the servant of the
Lord was exhorted to lift up the serpent of brass in the wilderness. And as the people would look
upon this serpent of brass, they would be healed from the bite
of the fiery serpents that had come among them. And this lifting
up of the brazen serpent was a time for the Lord Jesus Christ
being lifted up. And so the spiritual application
of the lifting up of the serpent, the brass serpent in the wilderness,
was the lifting up of the Lord Jesus Christ that all those who
bow in the Spirit of God are brought to look upon Him and
behold Him. They are saved by that looking
unto Him. And then you remember Jonah,
the character of the Old Testament we talked about a few Sunday
evenings ago. You remember that Jonah, that
what happened to him was used by our Lord Jesus Christ to illustrate
the death and the burial and the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so that's the spiritual application
of what happened to Jonah. And then you also remember back
in the Old Testament when the rock, Moses was told to smite
the rock. And he smoked the rock and water
gushed out. The spiritual application of
that is that when the Lord Jesus Christ was smitten on Mount Calvary
by the hand of his own father in judgment, when Jesus Christ
was stricken and smitten and afflicted of God, that this was
the flowing out of the everlasting mercies of God the Father through
his son Jesus Christ unto his elect people. Now that was the
spiritual application of what happened when the rock was smitten.
And so here in this portion of the Word of God this morning,
we see the prophet Ezekiel being commanded and exhorted by God
and being transmitted, as it were, by the Lord out into the
midst of a valley that was full of dry bones. And this application,
or the spiritual application, is that sinners are dead, that
even the elect people of God have not yet been brought in
to the sheepfold, that they're by nature the children of wrath,
even as others, And there must occur in the soul of every individual
that comes to be one of the covenant people of God, in actual experience,
there must be a resurrection, a spiritual resurrection of their
dead souls in them before they can live, have the life of God
in them. And so that's the application,
the spiritual application of these verses. But let us look
at these verses this morning and preach as God enables us
to from these verses. Now the hand of the Lord, Ezekiel
says, was upon me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord
and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full
of bones and caused me to pass by them round about. The spirit
of the Lord caused the prophet to pass by these bones and to
look upon them, to get a good view of what was before him. And the Spirit of the Lord, of
course, doing the directing, caused him to see a situation
here that I'm sure was very startling to his eyes. It was a situation
that was very moving to his heart. Here's a valley full of dry bones,
a very hopeless-looking situation indeed. It looks like that there's
a situation that's absolutely one of the most, what we might
say, obnoxious situations that a prophet of God could find himself
in. But here he is viewing this valley
full of dry bones, and we're told in verse 2 that as the Lord
calls him to pass round about, behold, he says there were very
many in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. I think that we must in the first
place take note of the fact that as the prophet looks over these
bones, that there were very many and they were very dry. Now it
tells us about the tremendous multitude of bones that were
just lying there in a big heap here in the valley. And the scripture
says they were very dry. Now I think we must be aware
of the fact of the spiritual deadness of those that are in
the world. We must be aware of that spiritual
deadness that grips all those who are not in our Lord Jesus
Christ. who have not experienced the
spiritual resurrection that the Lord's people have experienced. We must recognize that we're
living as it were, as the people of God today, in the midst of
a mass graveyard. We're living among dead people,
dead sinners. Death is all around us as we
walk in this world, spiritual, dead in us every place, every
place we look. Well, the Bible says in the book
of 1 John, John said, we know we're of God and the whole world
lies in wickedness. The whole world lies in the lap
of the wicked one. You remember when the servant
of God, Abraham, in the book of Genesis, chapter 18, when
he began to supplicate unto God for Solomon Gomorrah, which God
said that he would destroy. You remember he started out and
he kept getting lower and lower in number. Lord, and finally,
Lord, finally, if there's 10 righteous in Solomon Gomorrah,
will you spare the city? And, of course, the Lord, he
said, I'll spare it for ten. But they couldn't find ten righteous
people in the whole city of Sodom and Gomorrah, which brings us
to see, as we look upon the city of Great Balls this morning,
or look upon this great nation of America, How many righteous
people does God Almighty have in this nation today? How many
people are alive spiritually in Great Falls? How many people
have experienced this spiritual resurrection? How many people
have got God's breath? How many people have caught the
wind of God in their nostrils and have breathed unto life? How many people has God Almighty
saved in this city this morning who can say that we're alive
and we've experienced a spiritual resurrection. Well, there's not
too many. I'm telling you, we're living
as if we're in a mass graveyard. We're walking every day. And
in the graveyard, my men, where spiritual deadness lies, and
we must be aware of that. Ah, do you know, as we think
about this, as we look upon this situation here, no wonder, as
the Lord said in verse 3, and He said unto me, God said unto
me, He says, son of man, speaking to the prophet, can these bones
live? Looked like an impossible situation.
I'm sure it did. They were buried dry, don't you
remember? They were buried dead. These bones didn't have any life
in them. Why, there wasn't anything there
to suggest life, there wasn't anything there that could possibly,
that four of these bones were concerned left to themselves,
isolated as they were there in that palate, no moisture, nothing
there to indicate any life anywhere, and the question is asked, son
of man, can these bones live? You see, these bones represented
Israel that was scattered throughout all the nations of the world.
And they represented the nation that as it were was a dead nation. And here, can these bones live? Well, listen to what the prophet
said. And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Lord God,
thou knowest. You've only got the answer to
this situation. I don't know whether these bones
can live or not. Well, that to me and my ability, all these
bones would not live. I'm sure Ezekiel said, if these
bones must live, it's beyond me. Lord God, thou knowest whether
these bones can live or not. And I'm here to tell you this
morning that only God Almighty knows who is going to live spiritually,
and who isn't going to live spiritually? Only God knows who it is that
he has chosen to lie. You and I don't know. And we're
going to see a breakthrough here this morning if we got eyes to
see it and a heart to believe it. We're going to see something
here that will help us as the Lord's people. But the question
is asked, can the boats live? And the answer is given by the
prophet, Lord God, thou knowest. Now, I want you to look at something
with me. Keep your finger here or marker
or something here in Ezekiel and turn over to the book of
Matthew, chapter 9. And I want to show you the attitude
of men and women toward the Lord Jesus Christ when He, on one
occasion, you know there's at least three times, In the scriptures,
during the life of Jesus Christ, that he raised men from the dead,
or he raised people from the dead. And this is one of the
occasions. And here is the damsel that Jesus
raised from the dead. And Jesus came in in verse 23
of Matthew 9. And when Jesus came into the
room of his house and saw the minstrels and the people making
a noise, already beginning the funeral procession, And when
Jesus came in to the ruler's house and saw this, he said unto
them, verse 24, Give place, for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they lacked him to scorn. Now who are they lacking to scorn?
Here is the Lord Jesus Christ. Very God of very God. Here is
that one that who in the beginning was with God. Here is that one
who had come out, don't you see, from the courts of heaven. Here
is that one who was with the Father when, before all times
began, and they laughed and discorded because he makes this statement,
she is not dead but sleeping. As far as Jesus Christ was concerned,
this young lady was just taking a rest in sleep. Now, as far
as they were concerned, she was dead, and she was physically
dead. But they lacked him to score.
But don't you see the Lord Jesus Christ, he, the answer is with
him, as to whether or not dead men can live. And if he wills
and purposes, the dead bones shall come together, they will
live. And if he wills, that sinners
He brought to him that sinners be brought out of death alive,
that sinners be reconciled unto Him. They will be reconciled. They will be brought. And so
here it is. And so He raised, He said unto
her, Arise. He said unto the maid, in verse
24, He said, Ye can give place, but the maid's not dead. They
lacked Him to scorn. But when these words were put
forth, He went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the pain here went abroad
into all that land. And so the attitude of men toward
a sovereign God as to whether or not men are going to live
is they laughed in the storm, said it's impossible. And I'm
going to tell you right now with preachers this situation here
at Ezekiel 37 is impossible. You get the most ill, the most
eloquent preacher alive today, and you put him in this kind
of situation. He's helpless. He's helpless. He's equal as
a mighty prophet of God, but he was helpless in the valley
of Gabo. And all preachers are helpless when it comes to preaching
to dead sinners. Now, we're to preach to dead
sinners, and we're to preach just like the scripture exhorts
us to, but the answer to, probably they don't live for lots in the
hands of the God that made them and put them here in this earth.
The answer lies with the sovereign God. All right, now let's get
on into the story here, and we read in verse four, and again,
he said unto me, prophesy unto these dry bones, and say unto
them, O ye dry bones, here You do some prophesying, you
do some preaching. He says, he's equal. I want you
to prophesy unto these dry bones, and I want you to say to them,
first thing you say to them is, oh, you dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord. That's what I want you to say
to them. I want you to speak to them, and I want you to cry
out to them. I want you to hear the word of
the Lord. Well, now you know this sounds rather ridiculous,
doesn't it? Sounds ridiculous from the human standpoint. But
here God tells, he's equal, I want you to preach these dry bones
just as if they could hear what you were saying. I want you to
stand up in front of these dry bones and say, oh, you dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. That's what I want you to do.
Well, now somebody says, well, that sounds like to me an awful
ridiculous thing. For God Almighty to command a
preacher, why, he'd look awful crazy standing here in front
of this mass of dry bones in this valley, crying out, hear
the word of the Lord. I want to tell you something.
Let me say this to you this morning. If the truth was known, if we
could see this situation from God's standpoint, you and I,
standing in front of this sinful generation, telling this generation
of spiritually blind, spiritually deaf people to see and hear the
word of the Lord, just as ridiculous, as more as we're concerned. And
if we look at it from God's standpoint, we see, like we said, a generation
of dead folks, spiritually dead people, and here we are, we're
commanding them to go out and preach to them just like they
can see and hear. Preach to them just like they can hear everything
we're saying. But we know that the seeing eye
and the hearing ear of the Lord has made even both of them, it's
so in the physical sense and it's so in the spiritual sense.
And only when God gives a man ears to hear, only then will
he hear. But that's not our vision. Our business is like Ezekiel's
business to stand in the midst of the dry bones and say, oh,
dry bones cure the word of the Lord. That's what we have to
do. And so Ezekiel, in obedience to what God told him, he began
to prophesy. He began to prophesy. And so
in verse 7, he says, so I prophesied as I was commanded. I looked
foolish to some folks, and I had people When I talk to them about
God Almighty being the Sovereign, about Him having chosen people,
about men being dead, and men and women not being able to come
to Christ except the Spirit of God draw them and move them unto
the Lord, they say, well, if I believe that, I'd never preach
again. Let me tell you something. If I believe what the Armenians
preach, if I believe what the Armenians say, what their philosophy
manifests after their teaching, I wouldn't preach again, because
I know that with men it is impossible. Salvation as far as man is concerned
is impossible. Salvation is possible only when
it's in the hands of a God who can bring men and women up out
of a grave, even, and resurrect them unto spiritual life. It's
only possible as it's in the hands of the Lord. So he said,
I prophesied unto them as I was commanded. And the church needs
to take heed to this because we're told in the Great Commission,
go into all the world and preach the gospel. And there's a reason
for preaching the gospel. God Almighty has chosen to use
the means of the proclamation of this one Christ and the proclamation
of His word to bring dead sinners out of their spiritual deadness
unto life. And so the church needs to take
heed. We're to go and preach. And when
we preach, then we preach. And for a number of years, and
when we've done everything we know and bore witness every place
we can, and we wear, bear, and continue to bear the testimony
of the witness of what God's revealed to us. And it seems
like the results are few and there's not too many. The Lord
opens their eyes and shows them the truth as it is in Jesus.
Yet, we're commanded, we're commanded by God to prophesy, we're commanded
to stand before this world of dead sinners and say, hear, hear,
hear ye deaf, see ye blind. You can read that in Isaiah chapter,
I think it's chapter 42 in verse 18. And let me just read it to
you quickly, Isaiah 42 verse 18. Listen to what this says.
He says, hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see. Now
it looks like an utter impossibility. How's a man who's deaf, how's
he going to hear? How's a man who's blind going
to see? How? Well, we'll answer that
a little bit later on in our message here this morning. But
nevertheless, we're commanded to preach to men just like they
both could see and could hear the word of the Lord. And don't
you ever forget it. And that's why we keep preaching
here. That's why we keep on. And that's why we'll continue
on as long as God gives us breath to preach to men and women. Here's
the cause. We're commanded to do it. God
said do it. And through the preaching of
his word, he will bring to pass his eternal purpose, which he's
purposed in Christ Jesus. All right. Now, let us look a
little bit further at this situation here. God says, now you pop aside
of these dry bones, and He said, I'm going to lay sin to you upon
them. I'm going to cause pressure to enter into them, and they're
going to live. This is what I'm going to do.
All right, now, as we approach this situation like Ezekiel did,
he knew it was impossible. We know it's impossible. We look
out here in the world, and like I mentioned, there's just a stench
of death everywhere. Every time you pick up a newspaper,
it smells with death. It smells with the ignorance
of man concerning the truth of God. Every time you talk to somebody
out here in the world, or when you hear the news commentators,
when you hear men talk, when you see the productions on television,
it's death everywhere. There's death all around us.
And you know, it seems to me, and I think David experienced
this, And in the 119th Psalm, you remember that over and over,
he cried out to God, quicken thou me. Quicken thou me according
to thy word. He says, turn thy eyes away from
vanity and quicken thou me. Three or four times in that 119th
Psalm, he cried out, quicken thou me. Now the word quicken
means give me life. It means bring me to life. put
more lives in me. And you know, as we live and
as we listen to the world and as we are out in the world and
rubbing shoulders with death all the time in the world, I
think that's the cry of the Lord's people. Quicken, thou eat, give
me more life, more of the life which is in God. Give me more
of this life. Now this is a very timely message
because the state of the professing church is deplorable today. Death, even in the churches,
Preachers are dead. Prayers are dead. And all of
this stuff that we know of today as far as religious activity
in the world, it smells with death. They're in it alive in
it. Now listen to me, friend. There's
no way on earth that you and I can serve a living God with
us being dead. The only way we can serve God
is to be alive. And I think that's what David
meant, quicken thou me, because I don't want to try to serve
a living God being dead myself. I want to lie. I want to lie. And as Charles Spurgeon one time
cried out, oh, lie, oh, lie, be lying to me. Be lying to me. If there is such a thing as spiritual
life, breathe it in me. I want to live. I don't want
to be dead. I don't want to walk the face of God's earth. I don't
want to preach to men and women being dead in myself. I want
the life of God only. And if you and I this morning
have got any life, it's just enough to perceive that we need
more of it. We need more of the life of God.
We need to do it indeed. We need to be quickened. Now
we must be made alive in faith. Faith don't accomplish anything.
Alive faith, it works. It works. Do you know the faith
of old Noah? It was a faith that was alive.
He built that ark because he had a faith that was living.
A faith that believed. He'd been warned of God. God
was going to judge the world. And old Noah believed. The Bible
says that he moved with fear and built an ark. He moved with
fear. Faith that's living is an act
of faith. And that's the kind of faith
we need. Lord, quicken our faith. Give us more life, our faith.
And then we need more lives in our service unto God. Isn't it something how pitiful
our service is, how weak we are in service to our God? Listen,
David cried out, quicken thou me. Turn my eyes away from vanity,
falsehood, and the frivolities of the world. Turn my eyes away
from that directive unto you, the God of all life. And quicken
me that I might serve with a quicken, a heart that's alive. Not dead,
but alive. All right, but then we need life
in our prayers. Most of the time, I'm afraid it's so. One old preacher,
one time he was listening to a deacon in a Baptist church
pray, and after he got done, he described it like a dog walking
through dry leaves. He said, that's all there is
to it. Sounded like a dog talking through dry leaves, and it's
so. with our prayers. May God quicken us that in prayer
we may be alive. We're praying to a living God. Over and over and over in the
scriptures you read it. He's the living, the living, the living
God, not a dead God. He's alive. And you and I, when
we pray, we're to remember that. In our deadness, we're to lament. We're going to weep over it and
we're going to come upon this God with that, with that car
crying constantly coming forward with him. I mean, give me this
spiritual resurrection. I have been translated. Thank
God out of there for the life and I am saved. I'm in Christ,
but there's so much there in these members. So this body is
so dead. It is dead, brother. It's dead.
This body is dead in sin. This body has not yet been regenerated.
It's not yet been quickened. It's not yet come forth out of
the grave. It's not yet been resurrected. And so we have death clinging
upon us. And so may God so quicken our
souls in us and give us such life that we would be able in
our prayers to seek a God who's living and to seek him with a
prayer that's alive. And that in our devotion, all
in our devotion, if we're going to be dead any place, let it
be when we're in the world. Let it be when we're out here
in the world. Let it be on our jobs. Let it be when we're, when
we're trying to make a living, let us be dead there. Let us
not be dead in our devotion to God. If we're ever going to live,
let's live in devotion toward the God that sits on the throne
and toward this God who has us in his hands, who has our breath.
in His hands, let's be alive unto Him. Of course, He's the
only one that can do that. And so, therefore, the cry goes
out, O life of life, be thou alive to me. And that's the cry
of the heart of the true child of God in the midst of a valley
full of dry bones. The situation's bad, owner. The
situation's bad. And we've got to have some life.
We've got to have some life. And there's one thing about it.
I know there's a big difference between a dead man and a man
that's alive. There's a big difference. And I'm going to tell you this
morning, you take a dead man, you dress him up in the fliestiest
of clothes. I mean, you take him and you
just fix him up so he smells better than anybody alive. And
that fella's still dead. He's dead. And you can take these
church services and you can just fix them up and you can just
put all kinds of entertainment, fleshly entertainment, and you
can get the most eloquent speakers and all of that. And it's still
death unless the Spirit of the Living God is there. And I'll
tell you this one thing, we must have all this pain unless the
Spirit of the Living God comes down in our meetings. Unless
the Spirit of God is in us, making us alive, it's all pain. and
we might just as well go on out, shut her down, close up the doors,
and whatever, whatever, we've got plans for the future, just
cancel her out, because it's not by might, it's not by the
might of one person, it's not by power, not by the combined
might of the whole church collectively, but it's by my spirit, said of
the Lord. And so if there's anything going
to be accomplished, God's got to do it. So the Lord says, I'm
going to bring this in you of all. I'm going to put breath
in them, and they're going to live. That's what's going to
happen. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I'll tell
you God's got to do it. And we must be aware of that.
We must be ever conscious of it. And that's why I preached
this message to you this morning. It's a serious day. And every
time I look out, and I see this death, and I smell it appealing
to me, I am made to cry out, oh, for a spiritual resurrection
this morning. Oh, for God Almighty to buy his
spirit quick in my heart, I just such life that I would among
the dead be living, be living for his glory. All right? Now, I want us to think just
a little bit about the fact there was no movement here. There was
no movement in this battle. We said they were dead, said
it was an impossible situation for preachers. There was no movement.
Now, we were told in our day that there's got to be movement,
that sinners have got to move toward God before God can do
anything with them and for them. They must move. Now, Jesus said
in John chapter 5, verse 40, he said, you will not come to
me that you might have life. No movement here, and there's
no movement in the heart of the dead sinner. No movement. Sinners are not moving toward
God. They're not. If it could be traced back, You
and I must believe it without any ability to trace it. Any
movement there was ever in our hearts toward the living God
and toward His Son, Jesus Christ, any movement there was in our
breasts toward the living God, the Bible, this movement was
created in us by the Spirit of God. No movement in this battle.
And when the bones begin to come together, and the flesh begin
to come on the bones, it was God Almighty that caused the
movement. God caused the movement. And
so when you and I come to Christ, when you and I, when we thought,
you know, it's like Charles Perkins said one time, when he first
got converted, he thought that he had done the work. He thought
he'd come to Christ. He thought he'd believe. And
he thought that it was all his work. But the more he read the
Bible, the more he studied the Bible, the older he got in the
faith, The more he deceived that, the less he had to do with it,
and the more God had to do with it, that it was all God's work.
And it's true. Salvation is indeed of the Lord. Jesus said, you willed not to
come to me that you might have life. Your dead will would never
come. Somebody says, God don't interfere
with men's wills, Preacher. Preacher told me that here a
while back. God don't interfere with men's will. Well, friend
of mine, if God don't interfere with your will, you're going
to hell just as sure as I, Preacher, It's bound to be sold. Listen,
God does interfere with men's wills. God does come up sinners.
God does cross sinners' wills. God does take a sinner and break
his own heart and blame him. The movement of a sinner toward
God is the work of God. It's God's work. So we do not. You do not hear us say, sinner,
you take the first step toward God and God will take the next
step toward you. Sinner, you meet God halfway
and God will meet you. Ah, listen, this is all foolishness.
We know that it's contrary to what the Bible says. Spirit,
a quickening, life-giving spirit. Now listen to me now. If you,
as a dead sinner, If you ever get lied, you're going to have
to get it from the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Quickening
Spirit. You're going to have to do business
with Him. You don't do business with the
church. You don't do business with the preacher. You don't
do business with the religious educators of our day. You've
got to do business with Jesus Christ. Salvation life is in
the hands The Lord Jesus Christ, and if you want to get you got
to give him he's the beginning spirit How to get it from Christ
do business with him? Now I believe this morning that
if I was a man who had not yet been brought by God's Spirit
into the Lord Jesus Christ and had been given life. And I was
conscious of the fact that I was a dead sinner and that I didn't
have life in me and that I needed life. I believe I'd be trying. I believe I'd be trying. And I know that after it was
all over, it'd be God that would stir me up to do it. I know it
wouldn't be me doing it. But I tell you, I think that
the sinner ought to be trying to get God's breath. I'm just
telling you, you're going to have to catch God's wind sooner
or later. You're going to have to breathe his breath. Now, that's
going to take a miracle from God. You've got to get some wind
from God. You've got to catch His breath.
Now that's what it means to become alive to God. He's got to cause
His wind, His breath, to be breathed upon you. This thing of salvation
is in the hands of Christ. There isn't anybody else that
can do for you what must be done for your never-dying soul. Somewhere
between the eternity you must experience a breath of life in
your soul. Somehow. It's got to happen.
It must come. Or else you're going to die the
death that never ends. Or you're going to die. You're
going to die and die. And you're going to be dead forever.
Forever. Forever. Dying the second death. The second death is an eternal,
unending death. That's what it is. And sooner
or later, man, You've got to experience what I'm talking about.
You've got to have a spiritual resurrection. Something's got
to happen. You say, well, Preacher, how on earth can it be? Well,
listen to me now. These bones were commanded to
hear the word of the Lord. I stand before you this morning
and I say to you, don't lock up your Bible. I say to you,
don't forsake. of the assembly of yourself together
with those who are fellowshiping and worshiping the God of the
Bible. Don't stay away from the proclamation of the Word of God,
because if you stay away from divine service, and if you lock
up your Bible, these are the means that God Almighty is going
to use to bring your soul unto himself. This is the means that
God used. All right, now I want to show
you that God begets and brings men and women to spiritual life,
but he doesn't do it apart from his word. He does it through
his word. And here the prophet was called
out, they're summoned out there to prophesy unto these dry bones. You and I also have been summoned,
brother, to bear a message. collectively as a church to bear
a message, and we're to give forth that message in faithfulness
unto God. All right, now let's turn to
James chapter one, and let's look at verse 18. James one,
verse 18. Here's a blessing verse of scripture. You ever memorize this? It'd
certainly be good for you. It certainly will help you. in
your discovery of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. Verse
18, James 1 says, of his own will begat he us. Somebody says
amen. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
God that does the forgetting. You and I are dead. God brings
us to life. He brings us out. Listen to what
the rest of the verse says. Of his own will begat he us with,
with the word of truth God Almighty may get sinners, but He doesn't
do it apart from His Word. We are here in this church where
means battles. We believe that God uses means.
We believe He does. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
1. Let me read this scripture to you. Just read two or three
verses here to you. God's going to resurrect people spiritually,
His people, bring them to Himself. The lost sheep are going to be
saved, but He's going to do it by the Word. Listen to it. 1
Corinthians 1, 17, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to
preach the gospel, not with wisdom, but words, lest the cross of
Christ should be made to none effect. For the preaching of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness. The lost man says,
It's a foolish thing, that business of God hanging His Son on a cross
to die. Jesus Christ shed His blood.
This business of imputation, sinners having their sin imputed
to Christ, Christ's righteousness being imputed to sinners, that's
foolishness as far as the world is concerned. The doctrine of
substitution, the slaughterhouse religion, the world says that's
foolishness. But listen to it. Listen to what
it says. Unto us which are saved, it is
the power of God. That's the power of God. That
message is God's power to us. The message of the cross. Which
is not preached now in the rhythm of evangelism. It's preached
in the demonstration of the Spirit and the power of God. Now, why? Turn over here. Well, let's look
first at verse 21 of this same chapter. 1 Corinthians 1, verse
21. For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. Do you know that God
Almighty fixed it so that the world, by becoming more intelligent,
the world, by becoming more wise after the world, He fixed it
so they could never know Him that way? He did. In the wisdom
of God, He fixed it so that men by wisdom couldn't know Him.
Right. Somebody said, I'm not very smart,
Bridger. I don't let you go out of that. I don't let you go out
of that. No. You see, truth is by revelation. Truth is by the Spirit. Men have
got to be taught the truth. Somebody says, oh wait a minute,
Preacher. I intend to go to the library next week and get me
all the books I can on Jesus. I'm going to find out who He
is. You just go ahead and dig up all the books you can get
and you will never know who Jesus is apart from the revelation
of God's Spirit. You can know what people said
about Him. But that's not known. That's not known until life.
And to know Him is life. And you'll never know until life
the wisdom. You'll never know until life
by a human intellect. You can't. Now listen to this.
When the word of wisdom do not God, it pleads God by the foolishness
of his evil standing out there in the valley of dry bones, crying
out on hear of the word of the Lord. That's what it pleads God.
Pleases God. Pleases God for a preacher to
stand up in Great Falls and preach the dead sentence. Pleases God
because it's through the foolishness of preaching, not foolish preaching,
but through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. Somebody said, preacher, you're
ridiculous. You're ridiculous. You stand up and rant and rave,
and you stand up and get all excited and emotional about this
thing of preaching? Well, it may be, folks. It may
be. And I know it is. God said it
was. But God has chosen through the foolishness of preaching
to save His people, to save them that believe. This is God's way,
all right? Now, let's look in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5 and look at verse 20. You know, Paul the apostle, he
was a man who was commissioned by God to save Saul of Tarsus,
and then he became Paul the Apostle, and God commissioned him and
sent him out to be an ambassador of his, to represent him. And
here in verse 20 of 2 Corinthians 5, it says, now then, we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's name,
be you reconciled to God. So you see, this is the work
that God's left us here to do. This is the marching orders for
the day. This is what God has commissioned
his church in the world to be doing until he comes again. Ambassadors
in Christ's name, proclaiming to men and women the gospel.
not making it attractive for men and women, not watering it
down so everybody will be willing to buy it, but proclaiming it
in truth, beseeching men and women in Christ's name to be
reconciled to God. God uses the means of the word. Don't you ever forget. We must
be means people, means Baptists. Believe me. Like the Archangel
I talked to one time, he said, oh, he said, you're a means Baptist.
I said, that's exactly right. And he said, well, I'm not. I
said, well, Paul said that God's chosen through the foolishness
of preaching. You say that and believe. He said, that's right.
He said, that's what you say. That makes you a means Baptist.
He said, it don't make any difference what the Bible says. I'm an Archangel.
I'm a primitive Baptist. It don't make any difference.
Friend, let me tell you something. You and I have got an obligation
toward God. We've got to be honest with the
Bible. The Bible declares that it's through the proclamation,
through the preachment of the gospel that God's going to save
people. And there cannot be, there will not be, there never
has been, and there won't ever be a harvest without somebody
sowing some seed. Seed's got to be sown. And you
remember that. And so that's why we believe
in proclaiming the gospel. That's why we think we ought
to be together. That's why we ought to come together. That's
why we ought to pray. That's why we ought to go. That's why!
It's because, as we sow, there shall be harvest. Okay? Now in the book of Thessalonians,
1 Thessalonians chapter 1, I want you to look at this verse. There's
two verses here, verse 4 and 5. We're talking about God resurrecting
dead people and how he does it. He begets them through the word.
So you just keep listening. Don't lock up that Bible. And
don't forsake the assembling of yourself together. This is
the two means that God used to reach your soul. You must keep
that avenue open. This is the way of the Lord.
All right, verse four and five. Knowing, brethren and beloved,
your election of God. I like the way Paul says, that,
knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God. I think they
do it, and I think he do it. And there's a lot of people nowadays
wouldn't want anybody to come up with it, yet they want us
to. I wasn't worried about keeping that from me. If God chose me,
I'd like to know about it. With you, that gives me some
heart, brother. God Almighty started this thing.
He's to blame for everything that's happened to me. If God's
responsible for what's come into my life, this business of me
being saved, I think I ought to know about that. I think I
ought to praise God for it. I don't think I'll ever be the
same after I've found out that salvation is of God's doing. It's His work. All right, now
let's look at this next verse. For our gospel came not unto
you in word only. A whole lot of the time the preaching
seems to be in word only, doesn't it? Just in word only. But he
says our gospel came not to you in word only. but also in power
and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance as you know what
manner of men we were among you for your sake. Now this is a
blessing first because it tells us that one of the evidences
that a people is God's elect is that when the Word came, it
came to them in power by the Holy Ghost. Now listen to me. The gospel, this is a startling
statement I think, the gospel is only the gospel when it comes
home to the hearts of men and women in power and by the Holy
Ghost. Don't mean anything to a man
if it don't come to his heart in power. If it don't come to
his heart with the power of the Holy Ghost, it don't mean nothing
to him. It don't mean anything. It'd be a saver of death to him.
But it don't mean anything saving to him until it comes with power. And when it comes with power,
that's when a fella, that's when a fella, just like you drop a
bucket of wood shavings out here, and you drop, and you got one
piece of metal in that bucket, and you take a magnet and put
it in there and start moving around in that amongst those
shavings, By the way, that magnet's going to hit that piece of metal
and out it's going to come if you lift that magnet out of there.
And when the Word of God is preached and proclaimed and the message
goes out and as God reaches out there and His elect sheep, He
touches their hearts. There may be several sinners
there. There may be many sinners there. But the magnet reaches
that one and that individual is affected and drawn out, you
see? That's the gospel coming to a
man in power. Nobody else is affected, but
that individual. Something happens. God touches
you. God moves upon you. The Spirit
of God comes and arrests this heart and draws it. with a convincing
power to the Lord. This is God's doing. You see,
this is the Word coming with power. But this is the only way
that a dead sinner can be resurrected, is the Word has got to be proclaimed
and then God has got to send it home with power to his heart.
All right? Now then, how are you going to
believe what you can't see and hear? Well, through the Spirit
of God, you can. Through God's Spirit. Now, let's
turn quickly to the book of Ephesians. I want you to look at this one
last verse here. Ephesians chapter 1. And let's look at verse 13. In whom you also trusted, After
that you heard the word of the truth of the gospel of your salvation. And also after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now Paul is
telling me, people at Ephesus, those whom in 2nd chapter he
says to them in verse 1, and you have been quickened to remain
alive that were dead in trespasses and sins, He says to them, after
you heard the word of the truth of the gospel, you were sealed. You believed in whom you trusted
after that you heard the word. Well, I'm just trying to help
you to see this morning that God Almighty is never going to
come out here on the street somewhere and just hit you in the head
with a club and knock you down and save you. He's not going
to do that. He's not going to come out here somewhere and just
strike you down right out in the middle of the open field
somewhere and save you without you coming in contact with the
Word and the truth of the Gospel. God means to save men and women
through the Word. I want to get that clear to you
because there's a lot of people that's gone off on a tangent
and they come to believe the doctrines of grace and they say,
well, God's God's elect people, chosen people, and when he gets
ready to save somebody, he can save the heathen in Africa. If
he wants to, he can just go over there and slay those sinners
and save them, but he's not going to do it apart from means. He's
going to use means. The Lord may say to some people
over in Japan, and Gilbert gets over there, that he'll not do
it apart from the Word, apart from means. Gilbert better arm
himself with the Word. He better go over there with
the Word. And he better pray God to give him a tongue to sluice
on both ends so he can proclaim the Word and give forth the message
and tell men and women what it is that God said and reveal the
God of the Bible through all that. This is the way, I'm just
saying, I'm showing you now how this is going to happen. It's
going to happen through the Word. So nobody will get cross ways
and go out and believe something the rest of their lives which
is contrary to what the Bible teaches. God uses means. The means of the declared Word. Now, it brings us here to this
last part. of the Messiah, and that is this,
that there are three persons necessary in conversion, in regeneration. There's three persons necessary. How do you have this value drive
on? First of all, you had Ezekiel out there. He was the proclaimer
of the word. You got to have the preacher. You got to have the word. Scripture
says, how's a man going to believe on him of whom he's not heard?
And how is a preacher going to preach except to be saved? You've
got to have a preacher. You've got to have a man saved
of God. Holy Zeke was that man. Then
you've got this vast pool of dry bones. You've got God at
work there. And all of it, you've got a hearer
of the word. All your dry bones, hearer of the word of the Lord.
You've got a hearer of the word. You've got the preacher. You've
got the hearer of the word. And then you've got God who gives
the increase. That's what you've got. And you've
got to have those three persons there. It's not enough just to
have the preacher and the hearer. In our day and time, these armies,
as far as they're concerned, that's all they need, is the
preacher and the hearer. And the preacher gives the sinner
the proposition, and the sinner, all he's got to do is agree with
it. And the preacher tells him he's saved, whether he's not
there or whether he is. This is contrary to the Bible. Let
me tell you this, just look how ridiculous it would have been
if all these people, if this valley full of rivals, if that
was all the people present in this valley. It would have been
useless, wouldn't it? Nothing ever happened, but there
was something happening. There was something happened.
Listen to it here. He said in verse 9, that he said to be prophesied
to the wind. You see, here are these bodies
now. The bones have come together. Bone to their bone. Sinews been
laid upon them. And here they are lying in this
valley, but there's something missing. There's no breath in
them. There's no breath in them. And so he said, you prophesied
to the wind. and say to the wind, I say to
the Lord God, come from the four winds of breath and breathe upon
these lands that they may live. So I prophesied, he commanded
me, and the breath came into them. And they lived and stood
upon their feet an exceeding great army. It happened. It happened. They come to life.
The wind of God came, blew upon them, and it happened. They come
to life. Well, now the application, that as I said, is the spiritual
resurrection of dead, lifeless sinners. And I'm trying this
morning to be honest with you as to the state. of those around
us that we're dealing with. There are many and they're very
dry and they're dead. That's their condition. And I've
tried to set you up this morning to the mind of God as to how
he's going to bring to pass the conversion, salvation, the regeneration
of his people. Through the proclamation of his
word, he will get men and women to himself. And, I tried to show
you the absolute necessity of God being present before any
of this will happen, will take place. Can't happen unless God's
there. Unless He wins. Unless He's practiced
there. Unless God's blowing on the surface. Can't. Just can't. So you see
why we must seek the Lord for life, ourselves, and why we must
pray down the spirit of power and blessing upon our needs.
is because everything's in faith without it. And I don't want
to say anybody, one time there was a fella down in Kentucky,
he's a Baptist preacher, and he preached in a certain church
about 50 years. Brother Walker was his name, and one time he
was down on Skid Row, he was walking along, and somebody says,
walked up to him and said, Brother Walker. He says, yes, and he
turned around, and the fella, he was an alcoholic, and he was
a Skid Row bum, as they call him. And he stuck out his hand
and said, Brother Walker, you saved me. Slap that. You saved me one time. Brother
Walker said, yes. He said, you look like I saved
you. You look like somebody I saved. But you see, Brother Walker,
he believed in the sovereignty of God, and he knew only God
could save himself. But I tell you, when you get a fellow that
practices preacher saving, he's just not worth his salt. He'll
embarrass you to death. He'll never amount to nothing.
Why? He'll never amount to anything. Never will. These people that
are being turned out of these factories, religious factories
in America today, That's about all you can call them, brother,
religious actors. These people are not worshippers
of the God of salvation. They're not those who bow their
knee to his throne-ship and sovereignty every day of their lives and
try to walk in his way to go by and honor him and to exalt
him. The reason is because they're
a product of the machine. They are caught up, they've been
stamped out by the machine. I'll tell you, God's got to be
there. And that was sold, ever so much
sold, in the valley of the driver, the preacher, the hearer, and
God who gives the increase. You know, Paul said, the preacher's
nothing. And he said, the man that does
the sold is, he's nothing, really. He's nothing. And the man that
does the water and the seed, he's nothing. But God that gives
the increase, that's the one. You just can't do without Him,
brother. You can't do business without
Him. God. Let's pray down His blessing.
Let's seek His blessing. You hear this morning, Lord?
Seek His air. Seek His wind. Seek His breath. Oh, until you
get it, you'll never get it. May God forget sinners. May God
bring sinners to life. May God bring people out of this
death we've been talking about. May God do it. May God do it
to his glory, to his praise, to his honor. Let's stand.

Dry Bones Proclaim The Word

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Dry Bones Proclaim The Word

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