O Ye Dry Bones -- Hear Ye the Word

Scripture that I'm using for
my text today will be found in the book of Ezekiel, chapter
37. Now, most of you are familiar
with this passage of Scripture. In fact, there was a popular
song written about this Scripture years ago, the ankle bone connected
to the shin bone, and the shin bone connected to the knee bone,
and the knee bone connected to the thigh bone. You've heard
it, you're familiar with it. But I want you to take your Bibles,
and open the word of God to Ezekiel 37, and let's ask the Holy Spirit
of God to be our teacher as we try to find what God is teaching
us in this passage of scripture. The text, Ezekiel 37, the topic,
O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. Now listen to God's word. You
follow as I read. verses 1 through 4. 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
bones in the open valley, and they were very dry. And he said
to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O
Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said to me, Son of man,
preach upon these bones, and say to these bones, O ye dry
bones, hear the word of the Lord." Now this is one of those scriptures
that have several applications. The first of which is this, and
if you'll take your Bible and look at verse 11, And verse 12,
you'll see that the first application is definitely this, that there
will be a restoration and a conversion of the Jews. Now in verse 11,
look at verse 11, Ezekiel 37, these bones, God says, are the
house of Israel. I will bring you back to your
land. I will raise you from your graves
and bring you back to your land. Now, you and I have seen in our
day the political restoration of the Jewish nation. God-taught
preachers have preached this for centuries. Back in 1864,
over a hundred years ago, Mr. Spurgeon said this, there will
someday be a native government in Israel again. The state of
Israel will be restored and incorporated. The Jews will return to Palestine
They will walk upon her mountains, and they will sit under her trees.
God says, I will open your graves, and I will bring you back into
the land of Israel. That's verse 11 and verse 12
here in Ezekiel 37. Now that's a political restoration
of Israel, and someday, we haven't seen this yet, but someday we're
going to see a spiritual restoration of Israel. The scriptures indicate,
and I would like for you sometime to read Romans chapter 11. The
scriptures indicate that God Almighty will bring Israel to
know Christ. That the nation Israel someday
will recognize, own, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Take
your Bibles and turn to Romans 11 verse 1. Listen to this. Have
God cast away his people? God forbid, Paul said. Then verse
12, Romans 11, 12. If the fall of Israel be the
riches of the world, and the decay of Israel be the riches
of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. In verse 15 of
Romans 11, if the casting away of Israel be the reconciling
of the world, what shall be the receiving of Israel but life
from the dead? And then in verse 25 of Romans
11, blindness in part, now note that, blindness in part is happened
to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved. When God took Ezekiel out on
that mountain and let him look down in the valley and see all
of those bones, evidently there had been a battle there. And
there were bones, very many of them, they'd been there in the
sand for many years. They were bleached and dry and
without moisture or marrow, just bones all over the place. And
he said, can these bones live? And Ezekiel said, Lord, you know,
you know. Well, these bones, son of man,
these bones represent the nation Israel. And someday, God says,
there'll be a political and spiritual restoration of the Jewish nation.
Well, there's a second application. This scripture is also a picture
of the resurrection of the dead at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Have you ever seen them open
a grave? The grave of someone who's been
dead for a long time. Open the grave, and take the
bones out of the grave. I have. I've seen them take the
bones out of the hole in the ground and put them in a small
container, just bones, a skull. And as I looked at those bones
that had been taken from the ground, this scripture came to
my mind. Can these bones live? Is it possible
that these dry, bleached, barren bones can one day live? Well, they will. The scripture
says that the hour is coming when the dead, all that are in
the graves, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall
come forth, and they shall live. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15,
2, How say some among you, There is no resurrection of the dead?
If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not
risen. When Ezekiel stood and looked
over that valley, and God showed him all of these bones of soldiers
and men who have been slain in battle, bones lying out there
in the sand, very dry, very many of them. He said, can these bones
live? He's not only saying that Israel shall someday be brought
back to Palestine, shall one of these days when the fullness
of the Gentiles has come in, that Israel shall recognize her
Messiah, her Redeemer, her Savior, but also one of these days, God
is going to open every grave. and the body of every person
who has ever lived on this earth shall be brought forth in that
day of resurrection. Some to the resurrection of life,
some to the resurrection of damnation. Some to hear him say, Enter ye,
blessed, into the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation
of this world. Others will hear him say, Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. There is another application
here, and this is the one I want us to look at in our message
today. It's another application that's just as miraculous and
is just as amazing as the resurrection of the dead and as the restoration
of Israel. And that is the restoration of
our souls from a dead state and the resurrection of our dead
souls to spiritual life. The songwriter put it this way,
it took a miracle to put the stars in place. It took a miracle
to hang the earth in place. But when he saved my soul, when
he cleansed and made me whole, it took a miracle. A miracle
of restoration, a miracle of resurrection, a miracle of regeneration. It took a miracle to save my
soul. That's what salvation is. It's
a restoration. He restored my soul," David said. That's what salvation is. It's
a resurrection. You hath equipped them who were
dead in trespasses and sin. Now you sit there with your Bible,
will you? And listen carefully as I make some applications from
this scripture. This is a picture. This is a
picture as Ezekiel stood and looked over that valley of bones. And God said, can these bones
live? This is a picture of how God saves a sinner. Now I'll
show you that if you'll follow the scriptures with me. First
of all, let's look at verses 1 and 2. He set me down in a
valley full of bones, and behold, there were very many, and they
were very dry. Do you want the truth about human
nature? Do you want a true picture of
just how dead how spiritually dead and spiritually lifeless
we are by Adam's fall, by birth, and by nature, here it is. Here
it is. Ezekiel, the prophet of God,
looks over this valley where the battle has been fought, where
men have fallen and their bones are still lying there where they
have fallen, and the birds have picked them to pieces, and the
sun has bleached them, and they're barren, and the sand has blown
over them. There's no life in them. These
are dead, dry, lifeless bones, without any moisture, without
any marrow, even a dog wouldn't pick one of them up. And that's
a picture of human nature, spiritually dead, lifeless. As Paul said
in Ephesians, without hope without strength, without help, without
Christ, and without God. And Isaiah described it this
way, he said, from the sole of your feet to the top of your
head, there is no soundness in you, nothing but open running
sores that have not been bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
Paul wrote in Romans 3, there is none righteous, there is none
that understandeth, there is none that seek God. Let every
mouth be stopped and all the world become guilty, guilty before
God. Martin Luther once said this,
man is without God, man is without life, man is without hope. He is so dead and so corrupt
that if man could get a full view of his sin and of his lost
condition and of his corrupt state, he would lose his sanity. They were very many, and they
were very dry, and that's human nature. That's the fallen, ruined,
totally depraved condition of every sinner out of Christ, just
like those bones out there in that valley. Very many of them,
very dry, without moisture, without marrow, without life, and without
hope. God said, after the man of God
had walked about this valley, and after he had surveyed these
bones and the condition of these bones, after he had gotten a
good, clear picture of their state, God asked him a question. He said, Can these bones live? And when you and I have, from
the word of God and from our own experience and from our own
consciences and hearts, when we have got a true picture of
the lost condition of every man by nature, by birth, before God
Almighty, this question comes to us. Can these bones live? Can they live spiritually? Can
the Ethiopian change his skin, Jeremiah asked? Can the leper
change his spots? Can the death smell of the sepulchre
issue forth the fragrance of a rose? Can the cursing tongue
be made to praise the Lord? Can the poison of snakes which
is under our lips be changed to honey and to wine? Can evil
feet walk in paths of holiness? Can hate be turned to love? Can
arrogant pride be brought down to submissive humility? Can a
twisted evil mind understand the mysteries of God? Can the
drunkard and the harlot be made pure? Can the agnostic and the
infidel be made a trophy of God's grace? Can these bones live?
Can this take place? Well, the prophet of God gave
the only answer that he could give, and the only answer I can
give, and the only answer you can give. O Lord, Thou knowest. Ezekiel looked at those bones.
There were many of them. Oh, what a picture, what a sight.
just a whole valley full of dry, bleak, barren, parched bones. No marrow, no life, no moisture. This is a picture of man's dead
condition, his lost estate, his depravity before God, his inability. And God said, can they live?
Ezekiel, can these bones live? And Ezekiel replied, Lord, you
know, I don't know. The preacher certainly has no
power to affect such a miracle. I cannot give life. I cannot
regenerate a sinner. I cannot convince men of sin.
I cannot beget faith in the dead human heart. I cannot bring forth
sons of God from dead hearts. The preacher can't do it, and
the dry bones can't raise themselves. No man will move toward God.
until God moves toward him. He's just like these dry, dead,
barren, bleak, parched bones, salvations of the Lord. A dead
sinner will no more rise from a spiritual grave than a dead
man physically can, under his own power, rise from his grave. You must, Christ said, be born
again. And no man can come to me except
my Father which sent me draw him. Can these bones live? All right, now look at verse
4. And when the prophet answered, the prophet said, Lord, you know,
you know. And then the Lord said to the
prophet, now listen to this, he said to me, preach to these
bones, preach to these bones, and say to these bones, O ye
dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Now I've had many people
say this to me in my ministry and my ministerial experience,
I've had them say, now, if I believe what you believe, that salvation
is of the Lord from Alpha to Omega, from beginning to end,
that salvation of the righteous was holy of God, and that's what
Scripture says, then what's the use to preach? Well, here Ezekiel
is standing looking over a valley of dry bones without life, totally
without life, and no possibility of him ever having any life if
it's left up to him. He couldn't affect such a miracle.
They couldn't give life to themselves, and no human power could restore
them back to life. And God says to him, Ezekiel,
preach to them, and say to them, O ye dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord. I suppose if a person wanted
dry bones to live, that the very last thing that he would do would
be to preach to them. I suppose if a person wanted
dry, dead, lifeless bones to live, the last thing that he
would do would be to preach to them and command them to hear
him. Oh, you dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord. I'll tell you what we would do,
and this is what preachers and churches are attempting to do
today. We would seek to tie the bones together. We'd go down
there and we'd pick up, like the song says, an ankle bone
and a shin bone and a knee bone and a hip bone and a thigh bone
and we'd go on a rib and a backbone and some arms and a head and
we'd tie them together into some sort of organization and call
it life. Or perhaps we would go down there
and give them a transfusion of our own life. We'd show them
how we walk. Look bones, see how I walk? See
how I talk, see how I breathe, see how I move. Now you do what
I've done, you do what I'm doing. Dry bones, you do what I'm doing. I'll give you a transfusion of
my experience, I'll tell you how I do it, and then you do
it like I do it. Or perhaps we put clothes on
them. And we'd dress them up like a human being is supposed
to look, like a living person is supposed to look. We'd dress
them up in some kind of religious garb and maybe put a Bible under
their arms and bring them to church and seat them down among
living people. That's our thoughts and that's
our way, not God's way. Our Lord said, your thoughts
are not my thoughts and your ways are not my way. Almighty
God said, is each hook in these dry, dead, barren bones left? The Lord you know. I'll tell
you what you do, Ezekiel. You stand there and preach to
them. And you tell those dry bones to hear the Word of the
Lord. God says, preach to them. Preach
to them the Word of God. Preach to them, thus saith the
Lord. Why? Because it is the Word of God that gives life. The Word of God is called the
Word of Life. In 1 Corinthians 1.21, the Scripture
says, God hath chosen by the foolishness of preaching, to
save, to restore to life, to resurrect from spiritual graves
those that believe. In Romans 1.16, Paul said, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power, that word is
dunamis, dynamite. It's the power of God unto salvation,
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. In James 1.18, of
his own will, beget he us, how? With the word of life, the word
of truth. In John 5.24, Christ said, He
that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal
life, and the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
and they that hear shall live. Christ is the Word of life. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God, and all things were made by him, and without
him was not anything made that was made, and the Word was made
flesh. and dwelt among us, and we beheld
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God. And
God sent his only begotten Son into this world, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." And that's
the message, and that's the life-giving word. Every life-giving sermon
is a sermon that's filled with Jesus Christ, because he's not
only the word, he's the life-giver. Listen to Ephesians 2, 4 through
8. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us,
made us alive. That's what the word quicken
means. It comes, you hear people say the quick and the dead. That
means folks that are alive and folks that are dead. And even
so, he hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace he is saved,
and he hath raised us up. and made us sit together in the
heavenlies in Christ Jesus, for by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Every man who is restored to
spiritual life will be restored by hearing the word of God. Every
man who is resurrected from a dead spiritual grave will be resurrected
when he hears in the hands of the Holy Spirit the word of the
living God. Ezekiel, take a good look at
those bones. Take a good look. Walk around
them. He let him walk around them for a long time. He let
him study them. He let him think about their condition. He let
him get a good look at the condition of those bones. There were a
lot of them, and they were dry as piter. And he said, Can they
live? And Ezekiel said, Lord, you know.
You know. But he said, Ezekiel, now you
do what I'm telling you. You preach to them. Now what
did he preach? All right, look at verse 5 and
6. What was the message that God gave Ezekiel to say to those
bones? What was the message? Well, listen to it. Say to the
bones, Behold, now watch it. Behold, I will cause breath to
enter into you, and you shall live. Behold, I will lay sinews
upon you. Behold, I will bring flesh upon
you. Behold, I will cover you with
skin. Behold, I will put breath in
you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the
Lord God." Ezekiel's message to the dry, dead, barren bones
was not a whiny plea of what the bones ought to do. Now come
on, bones, let God do something for you. Won't you make an effort? God's done all he can do, and
that's up to you. Bones? Won't you let God in your
heart? Bones? Won't you let God save
your bones? Won't you give your heart to
God and live? That's not what he preached. Ezekiel didn't preach
that God was waiting on the bones to do anything. He didn't say
that God had done all he could do. No, sir. There's not an if,
there's not a but, there's not a perhaps, there's not a maybe
in this message. This message is taken up with
two things. God says, I will, and you shall. I will put breath in you, I will
put skin on you, I will put sinners upon you, I will give you life,
and you shall know, you shall know that I am the Lord God. I'll put flesh on you, and you'll
live. And I'll put breath in you, and
you'll know that I am God Almighty." Who saved you? Did you save yourself,
or did God save you? Listen to Ezekiel 36. God says,
talking about this new covenant of grace, This work of regeneration,
this work of redemption, he said, a new heart I'll give you. And
a new spirit I'll put within you. And I'll take away the stony
heart out of you and give you a heart of flesh. And I'll put
my spirit within you. This is the work of God. Salvation
is not something the sinner does for God. Salvation is a work
that God does for the sinner. And I'll cause you to walk in
my statutes and keep my judgments and do them. That's not all.
Look at verse 9. Note, Ezekiel not only preached
to the bones, but he prayed to the spirit. Ezekiel said, Come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live. My friends, the preaching of
truth alone will not give life. The preaching of doctrine alone
will not give life. The preaching of this Word alone
will not give life. Spirit of God must give life. Yes, sir, there are three things
here, and I want you to note this in closing. Now, God brought
Ezekiel to look out there and see that valley of dry bones,
a lot of them, lifeless, without moisture, without marrow, just
dead, dry bones. God said, Can they live? Ezekiel
said, Well, Lord, you know. He said, Well, preach to them.
And he said, As I preach, and that's the first thing you have.
You have a voice. You have a voice. You have a man's voice. But it's
God preaching through that man. You see what I'm saying? Christ
sent his disciples out. He said, you go preach the gospel
to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believes what? What you
preach. The message you preach. The gospel you preach. The gospel
of substitution. The gospel of Christ suffering
on the cross in the sinner's place. The gospel of Christ obeying
the law as our representative and imputing to us a perfect
righteousness, the gospel of God's love and grace and mercy
through Jesus Christ. You go preach, and he that heareth
you, heareth me, God said. And he that despiseth you, despiseth
me. There's got to be a voice. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how
they're going to call on him in whom they've not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard?
And how are they going to hear without a preacher? And how are
they going to preach except they be sent? So the first thing,
God sent a messenger. God sent a man with a voice,
and God spoke through that voice. All right, second thing you have
is this. And the scripture says there was a noise. There was
a stir, in other words. What is this stir? Well, this
stir is the stir of interest. This is the stir of opposition.
This is the stir of inquiry. You know, it troubles me that
so many people are preaching today, and there's so much indifference. Nobody seems to care. But let
a man preach the message God lays on his heart, the message
that God gives him, and there'll be a stir. There'll be a stir
of opposition, there'll be a stir of interest, there'll be a stir
of inquiry. No longer the deadness of religion,
the lifelessness of religion, but men and women like these
bones coming together to hear the Word of God. Teach me some
more. Preach to me. I need to know what you're saying.
All right, last of all, there was breath. Silent, sovereign,
strong breath. Spirit of God came. The Spirit
of God came and gave life, gave eyes to see, and ears to hear,
and a heart to understand, and feet to walk in paths of righteousness,
a tongue to praise the Lord, and a mind to understand the
mysteries of the kingdom of God. Not by might nor by power, but
by my Spirit, saith the Lord God. If you'd like to have this
message on cassette tape, you write to me. The address will
be given to you in just a moment. The charge is three dollars.
Until next week at the same time, Henry Mahan, giving you a very
pleasant good day.

O Ye Dry Bones -- Hear Ye the Word

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

Joshua

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

O Ye Dry Bones -- Hear Ye the Word

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

More from Henry Mahan

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Henry Mahan

Books by Henry Mahan

Joshua

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book