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Bruce Crabtree

Preach to the Dead Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Bruce Crabtree • July, 10 2011 • Audio
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What does the Bible say about the condition of humanity?

The Bible describes humanity's condition as being 'dead in trespasses and sins' (Ephesians 2:1).

The Scripture presents humanity's condition as one of total depravity and lostness, exemplified in Ezekiel 37:1-14 through the imagery of the valley of dry bones. Ezekiel observes that these bones are very dry, indicating the depth of their death and helplessness. Paul emphasizes this in Ephesians 2:1, stating that we are dead in trespasses and sins, conveying that apart from divine intervention, humanity cannot revive itself or recover from this state. This reflects the necessity of a sovereign act of God to bring life to the spiritually dead.

Ephesians 2:1, Ezekiel 37:1-14

How do we know that God can bring life to the spiritually dead?

We know God can bring life because He commands it, as shown in Ezekiel 37 when He tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones.

In Ezekiel 37, God demonstrates His sovereignty and power by asking Ezekiel if the dry bones can live, leading Ezekiel to acknowledge that only God knows. When commanded to preach to the bones, Ezekiel obeys, and the bones come together and receive flesh, yet still lack life. It is only through God's command, followed by Ezekiel's prophetic action, that breath enters them and they live (Ezekiel 37:4-10). This event exemplifies that God alone has the authority to give life to the spiritually dead, assuring us of His power in our salvation and conversion.

Ezekiel 37:4-10

Why is preaching important for Christians?

Preaching is vital because it is the means through which God saves the lost and brings life to the spiritually dead.

Preaching plays a crucial role in the Christian faith as it is how God has chosen to proclaim His Word and bring forth life from death. Ezekiel's command to preach to the dry bones illustrates that God calls His messengers to declare His truth even to the spiritually dead (Ezekiel 37:4). This 'foolishness' of preaching, as Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 1:21-23, becomes the means by which those dead in sin can be quickened by the Holy Spirit. The proclamation of the gospel brings the message of hope to those who feel cut off and without hope, reiterating that the preached Word of God is the life-giving message for the lost.

1 Corinthians 1:21-23, Ezekiel 37:4

What does it mean to be saved according to the Bible?

Being saved means experiencing a resurrection from spiritual death and knowing the Lord (Ezekiel 37:12-13).

In biblical terms, salvation encompasses both a spiritual resurrection and a personal relationship with God. Ezekiel 37:12-13 illustrates this as God promises to open the graves of His people, bringing them forth to life, which signifies the transforming work of salvation. To be saved entails being raised from spiritual death, thus receiving life through faith in Christ. Furthermore, it involves coming to know God personally, echoing John 17:3's definition of eternal life: knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ. This twofold aspect of salvation underscores not only the transformative power of the gospel but also the relational aspect of knowing God intimately.

Ezekiel 37:12-13, John 17:3

Sermon Transcript

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in Ezekiel's Gospel chapter 37.
I want to begin reading in verse 1. Ezekiel chapter 37 and verse
1. The hand of the Lord was upon
me and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me
down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. and
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? And I answered,
O Lord God, you know. Again he said unto me, Preach,
speak, 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 unto you, and
you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you,
and I will bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin and put
breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that
I am the Lord. So I preached as I was commanded,
and as I preached there was a noise, and behold, a shaking, and the
bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld,
lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin
covered them above. But there was no life, no breath,
no spirit in them. Then said the Lord unto me, Preach
unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind,
Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. And so I
prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came unto them,
and they lived and stood upon their feet in an exceeding great
army. Then he said unto me, Son of
man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they
say, our bones are dried, and our hope is lost. We are cut
off for our part. Therefore prophesy and say unto
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
I will bring you unto the land of Israel. And you shall know
that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people,
and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit
in you, and you shall live. And I shall place you in your
own land. Then shall you know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it. and performed this, saith the
Lord." I want us to just look at this passage of Scripture
and what an amazing passage it is. I have often tried to put
myself in the mind of this prophet as the Lord did this with him
and how amazed he was. But let's begin here in verse
1. This begins where I wish the
Lord would begin with some men today. The hand of the Lord was
upon me. We often talk about us needing
a revival in our day, and I doubt if our country has ever needed
a revival any more than it needs one now. And when the Lord sends
a revival, if He does, here's the way He does it. He simply
raises up a few men, sometimes even one man, and he gets such
hold on that man and takes such control on that man and fills
him with the power and Spirit of God that the world cannot
help but sit up and listen. The hand of the Lord was upon
me. If you want to read some interesting
things, just get your concordance sometime and find some of the
places that's listed like this. The hand of the Lord was upon
him. The power of God has come upon
men in the past, and when it does, something happens. I remember
when Elijah was upon Mount Carmel. And it hadn't rained for three
and a half years. And that's when he offered the
sacrifices up. And he told his servant to go
look for a cloud. And he finally saw one coming
about the size of a man's hands. And Ahab was there with his chariot
and his horses up to him. And he said, Ahab, you better
get out of here because it's going to flood. And Ahab took
off with those chariots and those horses tied to him and tried
to get back to Jezreel before the rains came. And he is running
those horses as fast as they would go. And the Scripture says
the hand of the Lord was upon Elijah, and he ran before the
chariot of Ahab sixteen miles. That's what I'm talking about.
When the hand of the Lord picks a man out, gets hold upon him,
snatches him out of his own life, his own ambitions, and begins
to use him, it's supernatural. The hand of the Lord was upon
me, and he got me, and took such hold upon me, and brought me,
and set me in this valley of dry bones." That is what we need
today, brothers and sisters. It was said that George Whitefield,
the great George Whitefield, probably the best preacher since
the apostles. I would say probably the best
preacher since the apostles. And what made him so was this
very thing. The hand of God was upon that
man. And if you read the history of
this country from the right people, you will find out that George
Whitefield probably, more than any other single man, had more
to do with establishing a Constitution and a Bill of Rights in this
country than even men like Adams or George Washington or Benjamin
Franklin did. When he came over here in the
mid-1770s, and he was going from Georgia up to Massachusetts and
New Jersey preaching the gospel of Christ, it was said that these
colonists got such a taste of freedom, freedom from sin, freedom
from the bondage of sin, that it just spread even unto the
civil government. And it wasn't just Patrick Henry
that was saying, give me liberty or give me death. But it was
all of the colonies. We want liberty. And one man from France, he was
a statesman from France. I gave Miranda a copy of some
of the statements that he made. He came over in the 1830s to
the United States. And he said, America owed her
liberty. basically to Christianity. That the American people could
not conceive of separating these two things, liberty and Christianity. And some contend that it all
started when God took a hold of George Whitefield and set
him down here in these colonies and he began to preach the gospel
of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we need today. That's what we need. God to take
hold of somebody. The hand of the Lord was upon
me and carried me out, and carried me out. And he set me down, and
look what he did in the last portion of verse 1. The first
thing he did here was to teach this prophet depravity. This is depravity. He's going
to send this prophet to preach life to these people. God is
going to use him to bring life to this valley of bones. But
what's the first thing he teaches this prophet? Of their awful,
awful condition. He said him down here, he says,
in this valley full of bones, and calls me to pass by them,
and that simply means he calls me to walk through these bones
and consider them. I just didn't stand up here and
look and say, it looks like a bunch of bones. He got me down in the
midst of them and said, now look at these bones. And he was astonished
by it. He noticed some things about
it. First thing he noticed here, that they were many! Did you
notice that? Many! Now, I don't know how many there
were, but there were more than a few. There's more than a few. If you go over in the New Testament,
sometimes when you read the word many, it means all. And I imagine
when he looked at them, he thought, my soul, what has happened? The valley was full of dry bones. Many of them. Many of them. You and I, we'll go somewhere
tomorrow. We'll be around a lot of people.
Tuesday, when we go over to the Creation Museum, we'll be around
a lot of people. We'll see a lot of people. And
you know something? There's a good chance that a
multitude of them are dead in trespasses. You kids go to school? You men
and women go to work? Sometimes you go to a sporting
event where the stadium is full of people? Isn't it amazing that
they're lost? Look at the sheer number of people
who are lost Hell has enlarged itself to receive the people
that's going down into it. Humanity has filled this world,
and it, for the most part, is lost. If it was just my family
and your family, or a few of us gathered here, or just Newcastle,
that would be different. We say, boy, it's sad, but my
goodness, it's not that many. Listen, baby. But when you consider
the world, a world of humanity, can you imagine going back from
Adam's time up to this time? And they estimated there's probably
been 125 billion people. Can you imagine that? Dead and trespassers. The sure number of them, the
sure number of them, he took notice of. He set me down in
the midst of a valley, and it was full of bones. And he caused me to pass through
them, and, lo, they were very many. Many. It's almost despairing when you
consider that, ain't it? When you consider that. Families.
Towns. States. Nations. The earth is
full of lost people. I'll never believe that. I'll
never believe that. Well, maybe God needs to get
a hold of you and set you down and teach you. Set you down and
teach you. I never thought that either when
I was lost. I never dreamed. When the Lord reached down and
touched Isaiah's tongue and said, Your iniquities are pardoned,
He said, Lo, not only am I a man of uncleanness, but I'm among
a bunch of people of uncleanness. I found out that it was not only
me that was lost, but humanity as a whole is lost. It's lost. Many, many. And look what else he taught
him. He noticed this about them. Lo, he says in the last part
of verse 2, they were very Dry. Not just dry. They're very dry. You know, if he'd have been there
and they still had some color in their face, and he touched
them and they were still a little bit warm, he thought, boy, get
the paddles out. Mouth to mouth. We can save these
people. We can save these people. It
ain't too late. The breath has just gone out,
the heart's just quit beating, there's still water. Let's do
something. There's some hope that we can save these people.
It wasn't like that. It was worse than that. It wasn't
that you could see some bodies half decayed away that smelled
awful. It's worse than that. It's worse
than just seeing some skeletons that still have some hair on
the skull. It's worse than that. It's worse than just seeing bones
scattered around dry. I tell you, it was as bad as
it could be. That's what he said. He said,
I noticed as I was walking through these bones and considering them,
they're very, very dry. Brothers and sisters, how dead
are men? You know something? Men are as
dead in sins as they can be. Whatever it means to be dead
in sins, man is dead in sins. He's dead. And something else he noticed
here about this, they were in the open valley. Open valley. However, these people died, it
was publicly, and were told over here in verse 9, In the last part of verse 9,
he said, Come from, O four winds, and breathe upon these slain. They were slain. And it wasn't
done privately. He noticed that. It was in the
open. In the open valley. He wasn't
back up in the mountains, in some gorge, in some secret place,
but he was in this wide open place, right out in public view,
where there was some kind of a battle that had taken place,
and whoever these bones were, they lost the battle. The enemy
had come upon them, overcame them, and slew them. And there's
where they lay. And it wasn't done in secret.
It was open. Don't that teach us something?
That really teaches us something. You know something? Man did not
fall in private. It has been on record now 6,000
years for everybody to go take these books and read it how it
happened. It's not hid from anybody's eyes.
It wasn't done in some secret place. God knew it. Adam and
Eve knew it. The angels knew it. The devils
knew it. The earth knew it. It was done publicly. Men say,
oh, I don't know how. Men say, what's wrong with everybody?
Well, you should know. It wasn't done in secret. The enemy came upon humanity
He dropped his only defense and fell upon his own sword. That's
what he did. The devil, the murderer that
he is, came upon our first parents, and what did they do? They threw
down their obedience, threw down their holiness at his feet and
obeyed his voice and were slew. Sin slew us. And it did it publicly. It did it publicly. Don't tell
me you don't know what happened. You do know what happened, don't
you? We know what happened. We know that things aren't like
they should be. Things aren't like they used
to be. And we know why. Humanity has been slain. He lost
the war. He lost the war. And now he's
dead. He's dead in trespasses and sins. That may be embarrassing. Nobody
likes to lose a battle, does he? But that's a fact. That's a fact. He was in an open
valley. And you know something about
this? And here's what the Lord was teaching this prophet. He
not only was teaching him by showing him, this is humanity. This is the condition that he's
in, but what makes the matter so drastic is he has no remedy
for himself. There is no remedy for himself.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine going around
and collecting these bones and putting bone to bone and trying
to give them life again? There was no remedy. Anybody
in his common sense knows there's no remedy to be found. in and
of ourselves. There's not. And there's where
we must come to, and God have mercy upon the preacher that
hasn't been taught that yet. And I think we're reaping the
fruit, brothers and sisters, from a bunch of preachers that
have preached now for a long time in this country that haven't
been preaching that from their pulpits. Verse 3, though, look at this.
Verse 3, look at this. Look what a prospect. Oh, look
what a prospect. And he said unto me, Son of man,
can these bones live? And watch his reply. Oh, Lord
God, you know. I don't know. I never even dreamed
of thinking of that, he said. Who would have even thought to
ask the question, can these bones live? Would you have thought
to ask such a question? It was God who said that. And can you imagine, by just
saying that to this prophet, how it struck home to his heart?
Can they live? Is it possible that these could
live? Oh, I tell you what, sometimes
you feel this as a preacher. You feel it in your bones. And
you say, not many people have been saved. Hardly anybody has
been saved. But boy, with God it's possible.
And you just get a hold of that little glimpse, Glenn. And you
say, man, I'm going to get another message. I want another message. With God, all things are possible.
Can these bones live? Lord, I don't know. But you know. You know. And if He knows, that's
enough. That's enough to make you go
dig and get another message. I ain't got it figured out. Have you?
I tell you, most of the time I come to the pulpit and I say,
Lord, I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know what you're
going to do today. I don't know what your purpose
is. I don't know! I don't know! But just the prospect
of knowing that with you all things are possible. You've got
some churches today, and they'll get a preacher out of a seminar.
They want him to have everything figured out. That's why he's
got to have a degree in psychology and sociology and zoology and
everything else. He's got to know everything.
We want a preacher who can save our people. We want a preacher
who can save our young. Well, tell me how he's going
to do that. I have not learned how to do that yet. There are
some preachers that can come in a church and they know how
to fill them up, boy. They train them to do that. And
they train them to save them some way. I just haven't figured
out how to do it yet. But God knows. God knows. And what a wonderful prospect
just to preach to people and thank. Can these bones live? Can these bones live? But he goes farther than that.
Look here in verse 4. Again, he said unto me, Preach
upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. Can you imagine this? You see
two or three things here about preaching, and the first thing
is the foolishness of it. Now, if you don't think preaching
is foolishness, here's a very good example. If you're embarrassed
to talk to people about the Lord, there's a very good reason for
that. It's the most foolish thing in the world to go to a dead
man and begin to witness to him. No wonder you're embarrassed
about it. Don't feel bad about doing that. Can you imagine? This man, this great prophet,
being in the midst of these bones, and all of a sudden the Lord
said, why don't you preach to them? Can you imagine? Like I said this morning, can
you imagine here he is preaching to these bones, and some neighbors
come by, and there he is preaching to these scattered dry bones?
Now that's foolish. That's foolish. And we need to
get it in our heads. It's foolish. Preaching is foolish. to flesh. That's why flesh is
embarrassed by it. I went up to the cemetery. You
know that I walked through the cemetery. And I preached one
of the best messages I ever preached to them the other day. I took
my text from John 6, chapter 5, I think it's about 29-30,
where the Lord said, The dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God. They that sleep in the grave shall hear His voice, and
they shall come forth. And I bet I preached 15 minutes.
I preached to just about everybody, and I called them by their names.
I know a bunch of names in there. Gene, there's coming a day, buddy,
you're coming out of there. You're coming out of that grave.
And I just kept preaching to them. I kept looking around. Nobody was coming up. Nobody
was following me. And I thought, if somebody hears
me in here, they're going to call the law, and they're going
to come to arrest me. I'm telling you this is the truth.
But nobody ever came out. So I started talking to them
about that. I'd say, you know why none of you fellas ain't
getting up? You know why you won't listen to me? Because it's
not my voice you've got to hear. It's the Lord's. They that sleep in the grave
shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and then they'll get
up. But see how preaching, it's no
different. Me going out in the cemetery
and preaching to them as it is for you and me and go preaching
to our lost neighbors. It's just as foolish in the eyes
of flesh. But here's what he did. This
is what he did. So brothers and sisters, let
flesh get red-faced. Let the devil tell you how stupid
it is. Let the world mock you. It is foolish. But it's the way
God saves. And that's the reason He saves
this way, because it's foolish. How foolish it would have been
if these mighty angels had come down and preached it. It wouldn't
be too foolish then, would it? But when He calls one sinner
and saves him, and sends that sinner out to preach Christ to
another sinner, oh, that's the weakest thing in the world. Paul
said we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. And notice this about preaching.
Ezekiel had a message, and it wasn't for living, breathing
people, but it was for those who were dead. Very important. prophesy upon these bones. But these bones are dead. They're
not even carcasses anymore. They're dry. They're dead. God doesn't call us just to preach
to the living. He calls us, brothers and sisters,
to preach to dead, condemned sinners. We don't preach to sinners after
God quickens them. We don't wait until He saves
them. We've got a gospel for dead sinners. We've got a gospel
for those who are guilty before God. You go out and find a whore,
you go out and find some maniac, murderer, preach the gospel to
them. That's who God commands us to
preach the gospel to. preach the gospel to men after
God is justified. They don't need the gospel then.
Well, they need it. But I'll tell you who needs it.
Those who are dead in sin. And thirdly about preaching is
this. Here's what it is. Ezekiel was
telling these bones to do something they did not have the ability
to do. Share the Word of the Lord. Ain't that amazing? A person
told me one time, we were sitting in a congregation and boy, we
was having a battle about the sovereignty of God and the free
will of man. And he said to me, he said, if I believe what you
believe, I'd just stay home. If you believe men are dead in
sin, won't you just stay home? You tell men to believe in Christ
and tell them to do something they can't do, why don't you
just stay home? Was he telling these boys to do something to
do they couldn't do? Could dry bones live? No. Then why tell them to? God told
him to. God said so. That's why he did
it. That's why he did it. The Lord
said so. And God has chosen by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. I tell you, brothers
and sisters, we tell men to do something they can't do all the
time. The Lord Jesus said, no man can come to Me. And turns
right around and says, you go preach the gospel and tell them
to come to Me. Didn't He do that? Come to Christ. But they can't
come to Christ. What are you going to say about
that? Come to Christ. Come to Christ. Come to God by
Him. Come to Christ. Forsake your
sins. Turn to the Lord with all your
heart. That's what we tell people to
do. Look in verse 5. Look at this. You think it's something for
Ezekiel to be preaching to these bones? Look at this. And the
Lord God Himself said unto these bones. He does it. He does it. Look back in your
own experience. You didn't know it then, but
can't you see now when you were lost and dead in sins, How often,
how many times did the Lord Himself speak to your conscience? You
thought it was just your conscience then, but now you know different,
don't you? It was the Lord speaking to you. Are we better than our
Lord? Should we be ashamed and backward
about preaching to lost people if the Lord Himself is doing
it? The Lord said, the Lord said,
and I love this. I love it when the Lord begins
to speak. He tells us to do it. And then he's doing it at the
same time. That's wonderful, ain't it? Boy, that's when you'll
see some results then. He says, speak to these bones.
And while you're speaking with these lips of clay, he's speaking
to the conscience. And you're here, and I'm here,
and I'm up here saying, boy, I hope. Boy, this is my prayer. Boy, this is my desire. But when
He speaks, you know what He says? I will. I will. And you shall. Ain't that what
He said? That's what He said. Look at
it. The Lord God said to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath. to enter into you. In verse 6,
I will lay sinews upon you, I will bring flesh upon you, I will
cover you with skin, I will put breath in you, and you shall
know that I am the Lord. That is covenant promises. You
just look back over in chapter 36 at it, and it shows you. Look in verse 23, I will sanctify
my great name which you profaned among the heathen. which you
have profaned in the midst of them. And the heathen shall know
that I am the Lord, saith the Lord, when I shall be sanctified
in you before their eyes." Lord, what are you going to do with
this people? I will take you from among the
heathen. I'll gather you out from all
countries. I will bring you into my own land. I will sprinkle
clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. And just go ahead
and read it all. I will do this, and you shall
do it. We speak on perhaps and maybes,
don't we? We just don't know. But God's
not a man. He's the sovereign God. That's
why we don't have alters to invite people up to. That's why we just
don't keep on saying and giving invitation after invitation after
invitation. We preach the truth to man and
we're waiting on God to speak and confirm His Word to the heart. That's what we're waiting on. Look at verse 7. So, he says,
so, so. I like that, don't you? What
are you going to do in the light of all this? What are you going
to do, Ezekiel? God's told you to preach to these
bones and this and that. Now he says he's going to speak
to them. What are you going to do now? Well, I'm just going
to preach to them. I'll preach. So, so I prophesied as I was
told, as I was commanded. That's why, why are you preaching
then? Because God commanded it. Because
of this wonderful prospect. Because God says, I will and
they shall. That's why we preach. Free will
ain't got no business out preaching. What prospect do they got? Except
depending upon feeble, fickle will of man. It's sovereign grace
people that ought to be preaching. They've got God's promise behind
them. Preach, brothers and sisters.
Go preach to men. You've got God's promise behind
you. And when it's pleased Him and
when it's His will, He can take it home to their heart. And He
says, I'll work and none shall hinder Me. No, it's those who
believe in the grace of God that should be preaching. Everybody
else should shut up until they learn it. So I preached. And look here what happened in
verse 7 and 8. I prophesied, and there was a noise, and shaking,
and bones came together, bone to his bones, and I beheld, lo,
the sinews, all the flesh and the muscles and tendons came
together. Then flesh came upon the muscles,
and the skin covered them above. But there was no life. You know
what happens sometimes, and we're all amazed by this, when lost
people become attracted, they become attracted to the preaching
of the gospel. We're amazed by this. We say,
why? Why are these people coming? They're lost people. But they
just keep on coming. We've said that so many times.
They just keep on coming. And we can't figure it out as
to why. There is a sense in which many
lost people are attracted to preaching. It brings them together. And so many times it brings them
outwardly out of their sin. They become sick of sin. They
say, I just want out of my sin. I'm sick of sin. They go get
them a Bible and start to read it. They become somewhat religious,
at least in a form. But here's the problem. They
still don't have life. Still no life. And here they sit, and we're
praying. We're praying. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. These bones have come
together. There's been a shaking. There's
some disturbance going on. But they don't have life. What
are we to do? Well, he tells this prophet,
look here, in verse 9. Then said he unto me, Prophesy
unto the wind, preach unto the wind, say unto the wind. Thus
saith the Lord, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe
upon these slain, that they may live. You know something? We say that
preaching is the most important aspect of the service. But you
know something that's just as important, maybe within the service
and most definitely before the service? You know something that's
just as important as preaching? And that's praying. You say,
Bruce, I can't preach. And you ladies aren't allowed
to preach in the congregation. But I tell you this, you can
pray. You can pray, O Spirit of God,
Spirit of God, come and breathe upon these lost. Breathe a breath of life in their
souls, just as you breathed life into Adam when you made him.
Come and make the preaching of the gospel effectually. Come
and give life. You can ask that. How much better
my preaching would be if all of you would spend time asking
the Lord to come and make His gospel effectual. One of the
things, and I probably shouldn't tell this, but one of the things
that really bothered Henry Mahan at the last, when he pastored,
is he felt like people quit praying. He said, it got too hard to preach.
I just felt like people quit praying. People weren't interested. They quit reading their Bibles
and quit praying. I tell you, Glenn, it's going to be hard
for me to preach if you quit praying. I'll be honest with you. Oh, Spirit of God. Are we allowed
to pray to the Spirit? Well, He's God, isn't He? He's
God. We say it all the time, don't
we? We write songs about it. Spirit of God, my Teacher be,
show Him the things of Christ to me. So I did that in verse 10. I
prophesied unto the wind as I was told, and the breath came unto
them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, and exceeded
an great army. What is it, brothers and sisters,
to be saved? What is it to be saved? You know,
it just means two things. And he tells us here in this
passage. One, he tells us here in verse 12. Oh, my people, I
will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves.
That's what being saved is. It's a resurrection. It's taken
us from our spiritual graves where we're dead and given us
life. And secondly, it's to know the
Lord. It's to know the Lord. Verse
13, And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your
graves. That's what it is, ain't it?
That's what life is, to know the Lord Jesus Christ, to know
God the Father. This is life eternal. This is
what it is. If somebody ever asks you, what
is it to be saved? What is life? Well, this is life,
that they might know me, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent. That's life. And then he says
this in verse 11, Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones
are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are
dried, and our hope is lost. We're cut off for our part. Oh, we've got a gospel for people
that think that about themselves. If you see somebody despairing
of life, despairing of salvation, I've gone too far in sin. I've
done too many things. There's no hope for me. Oh, tell
them there's hope. Tell them that's just the kind
of people the Lord comes to save. Spurgeon preached a message from
this passage. And he had two points to it.
His first point was... His second point was what I preached
this evening. But his first point was this.
He said, this is probably speaking to the Jews, concerning the Jews
in the last day. And he said, God is either going
to save the Jew and regather them, or He's going to regather
the Jews and save them. Isn't that wonderful if that
should happen? I have talked to people that you just mention
that. You don't say, I believe this. You just mention that,
and they get so upset with you. You'd think that they're living
in the hope that something like this would never happen. Wouldn't
it be wonderful if God regathered the Jewish nation and saved them? That would be wonderful, wouldn't
it? You know, the Bible said in Romans 11, I think it's down
around verse 28 or so, when the fullness of the Gentiles is come
in, all Israel shall be saved. God's going to turn back to the
Jew and save them? And if Spurgeon was right, then
I tell you this much, they're regathered now, aren't they? In 1948, they become a state
for the first time in a long, long time. And look at them flocking
into that place over there. You think there's going to come
a time when God may come down and put His hand up on somebody
and send them among those Jews to preach the gospel? And they're
going to be awakened and say, Oh, my soul, our forefathers
slew the Lord of Glory, and for all these years we've been His
enemy. Oh, there's no hope for us. Reckon
that's going to happen. Wouldn't that be a wonderful
thing to live to see something like that? Here's going to be
the scary part. If that takes place, it's going
to be after the fullness of the Gentiles become in. When all
the Gentiles have been saved, who is going to be saved? Seek the Lord now. Oh, now is
the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation.
Seek Him now. Seek Him now. Let's pray.
Bruce Crabtree
About Bruce Crabtree
Bruce Crabtree is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Church just outside Indianapolis in New Castle, Indiana.
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