Turn with me to Ezekiel 37. We are going to read the first 14 verses together. Ezekiel 37:1-14:
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 (or look), they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo (or look), the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy 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. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, 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 parts. 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 bring you into the land of Israel. And 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, and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
May God add His blessing to this reading of His Word. Let us pray:
God in Heaven, let the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts together be acceptable in Thy sight. Oh Jehovah! Our Rock and our Redeemer! Amen.
Here we have a most unusual parable in Ezekiel 37, the “dry bones.” Many of us are familiar with this and have heard about it. As it opens in Ezekiel 37:1, we see that Jehovah the Lord carries Ezekiel in the Spirit of Jehovah into a vision of a valley. This valley is mentioned in Ezekiel 37:1-2.
You know, the word “valley” in Hebrew is a translation into English from at least five different words in Hebrew. This is an unusual word, Strong’s #1237. It can be seen in many places. It is not the word “valley” as in “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” However, I think that it has a similar meaning. It is the word “valley” that is described as the “valley of Megiddo,” which is that great spiritual battle of the end of time. (It is mentioned in Zechariah 12:11 and 2 Chronicles 35.)
Turn with me, though, to Isaiah 40, and we are going to see this valley in an unusual way. Isaiah 40 is the great Christmas chapter, beginning “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” Handel used a lot of it (quite a bit of Isaiah 40) in Handel’s Christmas “Messiah” that we are all familiar with. In Isaiah 40:4, we read:
Every valley shall be exalted…
That is not this “valley,” by the way, of the “dry bones.” That is a different word “valley.”
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
It is the word “plain.” This does not mean “rough places plain” as in “plain as the nose on my face.” This is the word “a plain.” “The rough places” will be made “a valley.” Some of you that love Handel’s “Messiah,” it goes like this:
Every valley shall be exalted…
Do you remember that? It is one of the most famous portions of music ever heard in the history of the world.
When I saw that the “rough places” are going to made “a valley,” I was curious what the “rough places” were that were going to be made “a valley”? Actually in the Hebrew, this word “rough” is the word “pride.” The proud are going to be made “a valley.”
Lord willing, we are going to look at the sense at which this word “valley” is where the bones are lying. Ezekiel is called into this valley and given a whole series of instructions. This valley is a place of death. There are “dry bones” there, “very dry,” and there are a lot of these bones, “very many” it says.
This is just like passing “through the valley of the shadow of death,” which is a different word for “valley” but the same concept. You can go throughout the Bible, the whole Old Testament especially, and you will find this word “valley” many times. Remember how the Scripture says this world is a vale of tears, a valley of tears? This is a tough word; it is a negative word. Here are these bones, “dry bones,” in “a valley of…death.” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me.”
There is another interesting place where this word appears. Remember, I said that it is somewhat rare. Look at Genesis 11:2, where this “valley” appears again. We had a children’s quiz not too long ago on Genesis 11, and here is what Genesis 11:1-2 says:
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain…
There it is, “a plain.” A valley:
…in the land of Shinar…
And we know that the “land of Shinar” is a substitute word for the kingdom of Satan. Here is this valley again in its negative context. The whole people of the earth are of “one speech” and they travel into this valley to build a tower into Heaven. We are not going to linger here, but I want you to understand Ezekiel 37.
By the way, the word for LORD here in Ezekiel 37 is the word Jehovah. He calls Ezekiel the “Son of man” and calls him into this valley, a place of death, and causes him to circle around these bones. He wants Ezekiel to have a good look at these bones. It says in Ezekiel 37:2-3:
…there were very many in the open valley; and, lo (or look), they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?...
Remember in the New Testament, Jesus was accusing the false Bible teachers in His day, the Pharisees, and He said, “Ye are like unto whited sepulchers…full of dead men’s bones.” “Bones” in the Bible are a picture of those who are really dead, not just a little bit dead, but really, really dead—things that are in a tomb.
Also, this word for “bones” is a common word in the Old Testament, and it is used frequently. Remember Adam looked at his wife and he said, “Honey, you are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Eve was made from one of his bones, so a bone can be a source of life. But in the valley of death here where Ezekiel is called, he circles around the bones and they are “very dry.”
By the way, in reference to the word “dry” here in Ezekiel 37:2, remember how the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea when they were trying to escape Pharaoh, and they “walked upon dry land”? That is the same word (transcriber’s note: from the same root word) for “dry.” They could not walk through up to their knees, because we know from all of Scripture that the Red Sea there was a picture of Hell. Remember, it says that the children of Israel were “baptized” in the Red Sea. They did not get wet; they “walked upon dry land,” dryshod, and then they passed from the east side of the Jordan River into the Promised Land across the Jordan River. What was the Jordan like? It was at flood stage. They walked dryshod. As soon as the Levites put their feet into the Jordan River, it dried up. We have a saying in the west, in English, “dry as a bone.” Is that not a common expression? “This is dry, dusty dry.”
I remember seeing my first skeleton when I was in Junior High School, and it scared me; I had never seen one before. It was in a science lab in my Junior High School, not far from here, and it really shook me up. My classmates were joking about it. It was a little bit scary to me. But let me assure you that that skeleton was dead. It never moved unless the kids played with it, and we liked to play with it when the teacher let us.
You notice that these bones are not only dry, but we can refer to Ezekiel 37:6, which I just read to you, about the things that these bones lacked. In Ezekiel 37:8, we read that they lacked skin. They lacked flesh. They lacked sinews, which is probably a reference not only to the tendons and the muscles that attach the bones, the sinews, but also the very innermost parts of a man’s body, all of the inner organs. These bones lacked anything that would make them a live person, and in Ezekiel 37:8, these bones also lacked breath. So these bones are dead, very dead, ultra-dead, real dead, dead as a doornail. They are very dry.
We know that the Scripture is written in parables. All of Scripture is a parable of what is called the Gospel. In the Old Testament, it is called the “covenant.” God says that He wrote the Bible to be deliberately confusing. I want to say that again. Whenever I speak, I like to remind people that God says that He wrote the Bible to be deliberately confusing, in case the Bible might be understood by people that He had not planned to save.
We can read about this in Isaiah 6:9. I am not going to turn there, because we have been there before, but I want to remind you that this is in Isaiah 6:9 and the following verses. This is quoted by the Lord Jesus and then the Apostles in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and 1 Corinthians, just in case you did not get the message in Isaiah 6:9 that God wrote the Bible to be deliberately confusing. The Bible says that He did this in case man would repent; that he would read the Bible and understand it. This is to remind us that God is absolutely in control of the reading of the Bible and who gets the “ears to hear” and the “eyes to see.”
Well, here we are with Ezekiel circling the “dry bones.” The bones were “very dry” and there were “very many” it said—not just many but “very many.” There were lots of them. Later on, we want to be praising the Lord that there are “very many,” because we are going to find out who these “dry bones” are. We just read in Ezekiel 37:1-14 who they are, so it is no wonder to read these words, that there were “very many.”
But the Bible is a parable, and the context of this, by the way, if we can just take a break and look back at Ezekiel 36, I will not read it with you, but Ezekiel 36, beginning in Ezekiel 36:8, is a different parable. Israel had been wicked and rebellious against God and judgment was falling on Israel in the time of Ezekiel and Daniel. Remember Daniel lived in captivity in Babylon. There is a parable, a blessed parable, in Ezekiel 36:8-12, about Israel, who had been unfruitful; God is going to make them fruitful again.
So I am going to read to you, beginning in Ezekiel 36:21, another parable. Here the Lord says, the Lord is speaking, it is the Lord GOD, “Adonai Elohim,” which is the ruler, creator; He is speaking. I am reading in Ezekiel 36:21-31:
But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned…
Here are the people, God’s people. The Jews, along with the heathen, are profaning His Name.
…in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, (I am JEHOVAH) saith the Lord GOD…
And that word “GOD” is the word “ruler, creator.”
…when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you…
He is going to wash these filthy people, these Jews that had rebelled. He is going to baptize them. Not baptize, like dunk in a tank somewhere. He is going to “sprinkle clean water” upon them, the water of the Gospel.
…and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you…
This is the Gospel—salvation.
…from all your uncleannesses…
This is what we are saved from, from our own uncleanness and sinfulness.
…and I will call for the corn…
This is a code word for the “Bible,” the “Bread of Life,” the Lord Jesus.
…and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves (hate yourselves) in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
Pretty powerful stuff, but this is what believers do. We look in the mirror and say, “You dirty, rotten, sinful, unfaithful, neglectful of God’s Word person.” That is what we say, this verse, Ezekiel 36:31. Put a circle around it. This is how believers see themselves before God—believers now. “Then shall ye remember your own evil ways.” This is after He baptizes them with the water of the Gospel. It is now, if you profess Christ and you believe you know Him, it is now that you hate yourself, your iniquities, because it is now, by the way, that you begin to have a real clue as to how wicked and rebellious you are. Before we were saved, we did not understand; because if we did understand, we would be crying out to God like crazy. As a Bible teacher said recently, we would be crawling the walls if we understood the condition we are in.
Well, here are two parables of the Gospel in Ezekiel 36, and now we are in the “dry bones.” The Scripture says in Ephesians 2:1 that we are “dead in trespasses and sins,” and repeated in Ephesians 2:5, “when we were dead.” This is a theme of the Bible, that man is a “dead” man.
This is a nice group of people here in this room this morning. You all look pretty much alive. Nobody is asleep, that I can see. I am casting my eyes around the room and you are not asleep, but none of you look like you are dead. However, the Scripture says that we are dead; we are dead men, walking dead men.
There was an old goofy black and white film, popular when I was a child, which was generations ago. I think it was called, “Night of the Living Dead.” It became a cultic favorite. I think that it is still played. I do not know why; it was one of the silliest things ever made. It was about people who were walking dead people; they came out of their graves.
The Bible says that this is us—this is us. We are walking; we look pretty good. I can hear you speak; you are breathing. But the Scripture says that we are dead, and we remain (partly) such even after we are saved. We are only partly made alive. We are made alive in our souls, but our bodies are still dead. They are filthy rotten and they lust after sin—you “who were dead in trespasses and sins,” Paul writing by the Holy Spirit says in Ephesians 2.
In Matthew 10:8, when Jesus sends out the 12, He says, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” What He is saying is to go and give the Gospel. The raising of the dead is parabolic language for bringing the Gospel. “Help them; there are a lot of walking dead men around the Sea of Galilee. Go out and find them and raise them from the dead.” They were to do this by the preaching of the Gospel.
You know, raising the dead is a big theme in the Bible. Remember Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter? Do you remember Eutychus, the man who fell asleep and “fell down from the third loft”? Paul was preaching until midnight, and he preached and preached. I do not know whether he bored Eutychus or not, but he put him to sleep and it got to be midnight. I guess a lot of folks went to sleep. Eutychus fell out of the third story window, dead, a dead man, and Paul raised him from the dead.
We read about a lot of resurrection from the dead, not the least of which is our Lord Jesus Christ. Lazarus was dead for four days and his flesh was rotting. We read about Jesus raising him from the dead in John 11. The Scripture actually says that his body “stinketh,” which is sort of impolite conversation, but he was rotting flesh. He was “in the grave four days already.” The Scripture wants to make clear that he was dead as a doornail. The Scripture makes sure that we can not pretend that Lazarus was not dead, because he had an odor about him.
Here we have the “dry bones,” and they are “very dry”—they are dead! Some of you may say (by now, this would be reasonable), “Does not God trust us? Could He not have just said that they are ‘dead bones’? Why did He have to say that they are ‘dead’ and that they are ‘very dry,’ and then add, ‘Can these bones live?’ Could He not have just said that Lazarus died? Can men not read the English, or whatever, the Greek or the Hebrew, and understand when somebody says that they are dead?”
We are going to find out the very sad answer to this, whether or not we can understand when God tells us that we are dead. Do you think that you understand this? Trying to work on this sermon for weeks now, I had to confess that I do not understand this a bit, not one bit, because we all walked in here. We came out of that rainstorm, and we came in here believing that we are very much alive. No matter who you are, you are convinced that you are very much alive. Therefore, God has to use gruesome and extreme speech to under hit this hard as a rock.
Well, He says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy upon these bones.” We know that “prophesy” means to preach the Word of the Lord. In case we do not catch this, it is throughout all of the Bible. It is obvious what “prophecy” means. He says those very words, “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.” So he begins to preach to these dead bones that are lying in this valley of death.
Look at Ezekiel 37:7, as he starts preaching. By the way, Ezekiel is a preacher. As he starts to bring the Word of God to these dead bones in the valley of death, he says:
…and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together…
Do any of you bring the Gospel to your children, to your family, to your relatives, or on the street in Ghana? When you do so, is there a “noise”? Let me tell you something. This word “noise” is also the word “thunder” in the Old Testament. What kind of preaching have you been doing?
In John 16:8, God says that He is going to send the Holy Spirit, “and when He is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” Is that the kind of preaching you are doing?
By the way, this will cause a “noise.” This is thunderous preaching. I do not mean that you need to raise your voice or do any shouting. There is no need to shout, but the Word of God not only will come out of your mouth as “thunder,” but “shaking,” “noise, and…a shaking.” Do you know what that word is in the Hebrew six times? An earthquake! When you bring the Gospel, is there an “earthquake”? There had better be! It had better be earthshaking, because the Gospel is this: all men are sinful, all men are very “dry bones” and they are on their way to Hell. John 16:8 tells us this. In Acts 24:25, this is the Gospel that Paul argued before Felix.
There is not any other gospel. There is no “peace and safety” gospel, you know? Do not ever tell somebody, “God loves you.” You can not know that. You do not know whether God loves somebody or not.
Jesus said that most of the men on earth, God does not love. He hates them. “Broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait (squeezed) is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
Do not suggest to your family or your neighbors that God loves them. You do not have any right to do this, according to the Bible. In just plain rational speech, it just is not true, according to the Bible.
God loves His own. He Loves His people. “The Son of man came…to give His life a ransom for many”—for many. “The good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.”
Well, Ezekiel starts preaching the Word of God to these dead bones, and there is “noise;” there is “thunder” and there is an “earthquake.” Spiritually, of course, this is what happens when we bring the Word of God. Of course, you know who Jehovah is here. Jehovah is speaking to him. “Jehovah” is (about) 7,000 times in the Bible. “Yahweh” is another way; it is spelled “Yahweh” in Hebrew.
If you look in Isaiah 43:11, Isaiah 45:21, Isaiah 49:26, Isaiah 60:16, and Hosea 13:4, they all say that Jehovah is the only Saviour. “I, even I, am the LORD; and beside Me there is no Saviour.” Who is the Saviour in the Bible? Beginning in Genesis 3:15, where it says, “it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” there is the beginning of the Gospel.
This is Jesus Christ here, dealing with Ezekiel in the valley. Let us read Ezekiel 37:5-6:
Thus saith the Lord GOD…
This is “Adonay Yehovih,” as in ruler, creator.
…unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews (inner organs) upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD (Jehovah).
In prophesying to the dead people, the dead bones in the valley of death, this word “breath” that He is going to put in them is the word “ruwach,” which many of you know is the common word for “spirit” in the Old Testament. He is going to put the “spirit” in them, which is the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is very frequently mentioned in the Old and New Testament. Even in Philippians 1:19, it is called the “Spirit of Jesus Christ.” (Note: the speaker in the audio record inadvertently said Philippians 1:9, but it was actually in 1:19.) The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity. Several times in Job, the Spirit is called the “Spirit of God.”
In the Bible Class 1 this morning, we heard about the Spirit in John 3:8. I wrote it down. I will read it. Remember, Jesus said to Nicodemus just before this, “Ye must be born again.” Nicodemus said, “Well, I want to do that, I acknowledge, Lord. Tell me how to get born again. Do I climb back in my mother’s stomach and get born a second time?” Now this was a Bible teacher, by the way, a brilliant Pharisee. He was not joking. We learned later that he was saved, and I believe that Nicodemus that night was in fear of his immortal soul. He was not making a joke, but he did not understand “born again.”
These “dry bones” are going to understand it. “Hear the Word of the Lord!” They are going to understand. John 3:8 says:
The wind bloweth…
This is the Spirit of God.
…where it listeth (or it inclines), and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Jesus answers Nicodemus. Many people that do not understand the Gospel say that Jesus was rude to him and did not answer him at all. Basically, He says to Nicodemus that it is a good question, to which He can not tell him the answer, because the Spirit does as He pleases.
This is the Gospel of the Bible. God, in saving men’s souls and very “dry bones,” He does what He pleases. Exodus 33, “I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” The Spirit comes and goes. We can see the effects of it in the life of godly women and godly men and godly children. They love the Bible and they love to witness and they love to use their funds and possessions for the whole… , well, you can see the effects of it, when the wind blows, but you do not know where it is coming from next. You can not predict it.
Do you think all men that profess to be Christians know that they are dead in sins—dead, dead, ultra-dead, dead as a doornail? No, there is a religion that professes to be Christian, the Roman Catholic religion. I do not want to pick on them because they are just very similar to all of the other professing Christians. But they had a Bible teacher, I think around AD 1200, Saint Thomas Aquinas. He invented something called Thomism. He very plainly said that man is not totally dead, that he did not die that dead. Man can do science and build a rocket to the moon, so he is not in that big of a trouble. The fall of man was defined by him as just a little slip off the curb.
But this “dead” is the “dead” that Adam was told, when God said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Even though Adam kept breathing when he ate the apple or the fruit—whatever fruit you want to call it, the figs off that tree—and even though Eve munched on it, they kept breathing; they kept walking; they kept talking. There was not a bowing down; they did not stumble. This is because God was talking about Hell and their eternal soul.
This life is just a passing shadow, as the grass that grows up in the morning and withers away. Some of us are older and we are physically approaching the end of this life. Plus, the Bible now is warning that we have come to the very end of the universe. Very clearly, the Bible is warning this.
When God said to Adam that they were going to die, He was not joking. He did not make a mistake. He did not make a slip of the tongue. Adam was dead as a doornail, as dead as these “dry bones” when he took the bite of that fig or apple—whatever fruit you want to make it.
In Ezekiel 18:4,20, it says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Die? Dead like in a car accident? Very sadly, I saw that a lawyer jumped off of the Empire State Building and died, a day or two ago—very sad. That kind of dead?
No—far worse! Far worse! The Gospel has to do with your eternal future—what happens after you leave this life—and most men are going to face an eternity in Hell, a place that the Bible calls a “place of torment.”
Well, you see men did not fall so much, according to the Thomists or according to most all of the Protestant theologians and the Catholic theologians. “He did not lose his free will, you do not think, did he? Do you think that man is fallen in sin and he lost his free will? No, he has free will. God is too much of a gentleman to force someone. Besides, what you are suggesting is that men are just robots? God has elected people?”
Well, men are “dead in trespasses and sins” and God is not the author of sin. In Romans, “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” (Note: the speaker in the audio record said “In James,” but this reference was actually in Romans.)
Those of you hearing my voice who wind up in Hell, you are not going to be able to blame God because you are like every other man and woman. You love sin. I hope that you can admit it. “Men loved darkness rather than light.” Nobody holds a gun on us when we are filled with pride and filled with lust and filled with the desire of this world’s possessions. Does anybody hold a gun on you when you commit your sins? And we do everyday, even the saved do. They are saved in principle only, saved in their soul. And they hate themselves, we just read in Ezekiel 36, because of their sin. We just heard read to us a few minutes ago, “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.”
Do men boast? Absolutely they do! The Bible is not a joke! All men boast. Most every person I ever met that professed to be a Christian was boasting, “Oh, I accepted Jesus as my Savior.” There is the ultimate boast! You want to boast about your salary, about your Cadillac, or your retirement plan? How about boasting this, “Hey Buster, I saved myself! I was dry, very dry, but I got up, pulled my bones together, pulled myself up by the bootstraps, and started huffing and puffing. I did it! I found Jesus.” Right? “I chose Him. It was a great struggle.”
Accept Jesus as your Savior—I know I say this every time I speak—that is not in the Bible. Page through the Bible sometime. Read the whole thing. There is no expression; in fact, there is no suggestion that you can accept Jesus as your Savior. Yes, there are many commands. 1 Peter 1:16, “Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Matthew 5:48, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Romans 10:9, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Mark 12:30-31, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Mark 1:15, “Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.” Matthew 3:2, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
I can give you all the commands in the Bible, but you can not do any of these things. If you had the slightest bit, even, of common sense, you would realize that you can not love God with all your heart and soul.
One, One, One person did this. One Man repented of the sins of His people. He underwent the baptism of John the Baptist, the baptism under repentance. And if Jesus did not repent for your sins, you will be in Hell. I am about to weep about this, because I see myself in a mirror right now. If you think I am cocky about any of this, you do not understand. I am scared to death. Are you?
The Scripture says, “Let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.” The saved; that is you. You are professing to be saved. Are you afraid of judgment? I am terrified! I am terrified that God has sent me a “strong delusion.” This is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:11. It is at the end of time when He is going to delude the people into thinking that they are saved.
Well, these bones, they do get up and they join themselves together, in Ezekiel 37:8, and then God breathes His Spirit. We will drop down to Ezekiel 37:11:
Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel…
What is the “whole house of Israel” in the Bible? This word “Israel,” by the way, is “Yisra’el.” There are some people here who have studied Hebrew and they are going to run home and open up their Hebrew Bible and double check me, but I want to assure you. Remember, the Bible talks about the “book of Jasher.” That is right here. “Yisra’el”—that “el” on the end is “Elohim,” God, God the Creator. Jasher is a word in Hebrew. It is a frequent word in the Bible, and it means “righteousness.” “Jasher” is from the Hebrew word “yashar.” “Yashar” is a frequent word in the Bible. It means “righteousness.” “Israel” actually means, “God, Elohim, is righteous.” He surely is. He is the only Righteous One.
Who is the “house” of the righteousness of God? The saved. The elect people. The people that God has called. The people that God breathed on with His Spirit. Those “dry bones.” He dressed up those “dry bones” with flesh and skin and sinews. He put all the organs in them, and they get up and stand on their feet, which is a very powerful expression in the Bible. Those that stand on their feet, they get up and start to prophesy to more dead bones. Right?
That “stood up upon their feet,” watch out for this—this is a very interesting expression. Remember, the “two witnesses” are “dead” and then they get up and “they stood upon their feet.” And when they speak, there is an earthquake. There is “a shaking” and there is “a noise” and the noise is “thunder,” which is a code word for “judgment.” So if you want to have anything to do with the Gospel and the giving of the Gospel, be sure that you are giving out the “noise” of an “earthquake,” of “thunder” and of “shaking.”
Well, men read John 16, I mean John 3:16. I said John 16 and that is what a politician said a few years ago, John 16:3. He meant John 3:16. People read, “For God so loved the world,” which in the Greek is “For God (in this way) loved the world…that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” So they think, “I can believe on Him. That is easy! In fact, what is the big deal?” In Gallup Polls and Harris Polls and others, 86% of all Americans (or 305 million Americans) say today that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ—and most of them say that they believe that He was divine or the Son of God and that He was not a man.
Can you do this? Can you save yourself by believing in Jesus? No, “the devils also believe, and tremble.” There are examples of this and all sorts of people in the Bible; remember the feeding of the five thousand? Those people believed in Jesus, and the next day He said that they just wanted bread for their bellies—free food. They believed in free food. Anybody can believe in that. But the Bible says, “lest any man should boast.” There is a lot more we could say about this.
By the way, there is something really scary about these dead bones. They want to be dead bones. They are men that are “dead in trespasses and sins.” They do not want the Spirit of God to breathe on them. They believe that they can work it out; they can work it out with God. God is going to be their friend, and they know just how this operation is going to work. They are going to have faith. But the Bible says that faith is a fruit of the Spirit and that it would be something that happens after a man is born again. It is then that he gets a new birth. From dead bones, he becomes alive, and then he has faith.
Remember, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” This is a fruit of the Spirit, and it is something that happens after we are saved. Saving faith is something Jesus had. Our faith can not save us. Jesus’ faith can save anyone He gives it to, anyone He imputes it to.
Do you have free will? You are dead bones, lying there in the valley of death. Can you get yourself up? Get up off the ground. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Come on, this is America. Are you are an American? American ends in “I can.” You can do it. You can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and save yourself.
You might want to say, “Well, God is going to help. He does His part. He sent Christ to die for my sins. He paid for everyone’s sins.” (Which He did not.) “But my part is much bigger than God’s part, because God has to wait around and see what my decision is. He is not going to force me to do anything. It is up to me to decide. I have decided to follow Jesus.” But you see, these dead bones are suicidal. They do not want any part of the Gospel of the Bible. They do not want God in control. They love darkness rather than light. It is suicide for these dead bones.
Do you remember the demoniac of the Gadarenes? I think it is Matthew 8. It is in Mark and Luke, too. The man that lived in the tombs among the dead men’s bones. He could not be bound with chains and he was naked and ran around and scared the people to death around him. Who was that guy? Jesus saves him and casts two thousand demons from inside him. I do not know how many there have been inside me from the beginning before God saved me, but that is a lot of demons inside this man. He cut himself with stones. Suicide—the self-destruction of sin.
Everything we do as sinners, before Christ saves us, is to our own destruction, because the only thing that matters is where we are going when we leave this earth. This life is just like a flash picture. It is just a snapshot and then you enter eternity, which is unending. We can not even know what eternity is. We have never experienced this. The Bible tries to explain it—unending, forever and ever.
But the demoniacs of the Gadarenes, they were dead men. Jesus brought them back to life, and they were seen clothed and in their right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. This is the Gospel, Ezekiel 37.
I hope you spend a little more time with it, because it goes on. The end of the chapter is another Gospel parable about the sticks. Seven times it mentions the sticks. Those sticks that are broken, God brings them together.
The Gospel has so, so many aspects to it. May God open my eyes that I am those dead men’s bones. You may be walking around. You may be going to run the Boston Marathon tomorrow—10 A.M. You may be in great shape. You may be an Olympic athlete. But may God allow me and you to know that we are in the valley of death, dead men’s bones, and only God’s Spirit, we do not know where it comes from or why, only God’s Spirit breathing on those bones will make any difference at all. May we each plead to God and cry “day and night unto Him,” as Luke 18 says, for mercy, and may we study His Word that we may understand these things.