Dry Bones, Hear the Word of the Lord Ezekiel 37:1-14 Elder BK Dogan

want to say good morning to everyone if you would follow me in your Bibles to the book of ezekiel book of ezekiel we'll be in the 37th chapter this morning I'm going to spend time in the first 10 to 14 verses of the 37th chapter of the book of the prophet Ezekiel Ezekiel 37 I'll begin with verses 1 through 10 and visit a little more the 11th through 14 verses at conclusion let's hear the word of the Lord beginning of verse one the hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley and it was full of bones and he caused me to pass among them roundabout and behold they were very many on the surface of the valley and lo 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 prophesy over these bones and say to them all dry bones hear the word of the Lord thus says the Lord God to these bones behold I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life and I will put sinners on you and make flesh grow back on you cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive and you will know that I am the Lord verse 7 so I prophesied as I was commanded and as I prophesied there was a noise and behold a rattling and the bones came together bone to its bone and I looked and behold sinners were on them and flesh grew and skin covered them but there was no breath in them then he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy Son of Man and say to the breath thus says the Lord God come from the four winds o breath and breathed on these slain that they come to life so as I prophesy I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they came to life and stood on their feet and exceedingly great army let's pray i father in heaven thank you for your precious precious word we understand that it is life to us it is light for our path it is a lamp for our feet teach us father to treasure these words in our heart that we may not sin against you and father just let your word just be exalted in our lives and in our thinking and all the actions that we do let your word be central to us let it be exalted and let us live our lives in such a way that is reflective of the calling you have placed on all of our lives as your children and I ask father as Tony has prayed then all the things that you have brought to my preparation I do recall by your Holy Spirit and let your word go forth unadulterated unfiltered and unhindered as as it needs to be for these things I give you thanks in Jesus name Amen this morning we are going to obviously discuss the prophet Ezekiel just a little background Ezekiel was a priest from the family of Zadok and he along with the king and about 10,000 ish Israelites were taken into captivity in Babylon this was about 598 BC and pinkey was thirty years old when he entered the prophetic ministry and his name means strengthened by God and will as we'll see here we can certainly understand that the strength that God gave him served its purpose in delivering a message to the Israelites then and certainly preserving some principles for us to read understand and abide by now okay so we know about Ezekiel that his ministry was certainly marked by his visions he had some very poignant visions and he had honestly some just outright mind-boggling visions if you have read through much through Ezekiel a lot of the imagery is a little difficult to understand perhaps and reflective of things to come and things that did come to pass and his visions and were what he was defined by and of course today our time in the word we're going to spend on the particular vision that he received while in this valley so to those that studied them to those that study them bones have the ability to tell pretty intensive and very detailed stories okay anthropologists who study history of animal life can read stories in these bones that they find they find evidence of certain species that have been extinct and from these bones they can look at things like how did they live and what caused them to die out okay if a human skeleton is discovered you know the the CSI comes on scene and sometimes forensic pathologist will become involved to give a thorough examination to these bones and from these bones from these skeletal remains they can tell things like what contributed to the death of this person was this a homicide was this something that affected the person's body a condition of some sort and causes them to die bones then will tell a story you know historians also can can kind of take a look at if a society is unearthed they can look at the remains of this society and see what kind of health care was engaged in just by the record from the bones okay they can tell what the primary activities of the people were just from the evidence found in these bones they can even as go as far as revealing to the researcher the person's age approximately their sex and even the race of people they belong to interesting so in our work this morning as we read through chapter 37 these verses we see then that there is a message also and likewise in the bones that Ezekiel saw the Lord delivered a message to the people of Judah and he also made a promise to the vision of these dry bones okay these bones were brought to light back to life excuse me but these bones as they were as Ezekiel saw them in the vision were reflective actually in their dry state of the spiritual condition of the people of Israel they were brothers and sisters spiritually dead and unable to serve God in a way that was pleasing and acceptable to him the bones told the story of their spiritual rebellion against God and their disregard for his word their sin killed them and they're apathetic tolerance of that sin caused them to dry out to erode and to become as what Ezekiel saw strewn out across the valley not of any use to anyone now we also see though the flip side of this that in the process of Ezekiel prophesied to these bones God works a miracle in the condition of these dry bones so we keep in mind that we're separated by about twenty five hundred years is from when Ezekiel received this vision but the words he said as he spoke the Word of God still ring true for us this morning dry bones hear the word of the Lord that's what I'll be speaking from this morning dry bones hear the word of the Lord so as we progress through this first of all we're going to spend a little time looking at how sin can kill your spiritual life but we're also going to talk about how the power of His Holy Spirit can be a source of new life in you the significant event that kind of divided the ministry of Ezekiel here was the captivity that happened okay it was the capture and the destruction of Jerusalem as it went as far as even the temple had become destroyed in this okay Ezekiel's mission then came be transformed from one of warning and warning and warning and speaking against the things that were going on to a message of comfort and consolation and informing them to not fall into stubbornness and utter hopelessness and despair but in that there was hope for God's forgiveness and the promise of his salvation so the bones as we look at here in this first verse and second verse they did not have a good story to tell there was not a good story that was if we took the role of that forensic pathologist and and looked at these bones that Ezekiel saw you know we could look and wonder if we examined closely what was the cause of the death of these people okay three things it was the diet it was the lifestyle and it was the environment these factors contributed to the spiritual death of these people so instead of the milk of God's Word what do they do they fed on the junk of human ideology and pagan pagan istic principles they starve themselves in from the truth that is God's word that was being ministered to them through the Ministry of the prophets okay they chose instead to listen to the lying false prophets and and taking all these unnecessary things in resulted in a spiritual starvation now instead of also living the life that was in accordance with his word excuse me instead of running from these situations of rebellion and sin rather they ran to them they ran to ward sin as opposed to fleeing from sin they lived like their pagan neighbors for so long that in time they became just like them resulting in them being lifeless being dry and being of no use to the service of our God and King so once God's people then became set in their rebellious ways and not hearing the warnings of his prophets God purposed to unleash his judgment on them in the form of the Babylonians now they came in and they wiped out the army they took the people captive they destroyed the city and especially the temple and left the army as we saw here not too different from the bones and division strewn across the valley so one of the common things that the Babylonian Empire would do is they would take the great thinkers they would take the artisans they would take the communal communal leaders and exile them and there was purpose for this because once the upper crust of society was out of the way it made the common folk a lot more easy to control and to influence so they had a common lament okay and this is contained in the verse but let me read what it says to you they felt helpless and they would say our bones are dried up and our hope is lost we are cut off completely you see when things were going well for them when things were going well they couldn't be bothered to hear what thus said the Lord but take all those comfortable things away brothers and sisters and they cry out to their God for rescue these are the actions for dry bones now there is a message as I've said and the bones that Ezekiel saw all right they told the story of these people who were great in number they were strong in faith at one time they were useful to God and served him faithfully however sin became unchecked in their lives and tolerance a pathetic tolerance of that sin began to fester them okay they became eventually this dry pile of loose loose bones I got to tell you it was a very unpleasant thing to deny jewels Jews a proper burial so looking at these dry bones it was a terrific insult it was a terrific insult for Ezekiel to see this death strewn out all in front of him okay so the bones speak of death the enemies were left to rot and when they fell he saw this as he says on a very massive scale as he was caused to pass round about him and take in all the scenery okay so let me ask you a question when you look around you what do you see let's start with the world here we look around at the world and we see so many different things that perhaps offend us that cause us certain amounts of outrage we see ideologies that we certainly do not agree with we see politicians and and judicial systems becoming activists for their own causes and not being a representative type government we see all these things and we recognize it as nothing short of death the world loves its own but as I was talking in foundations class last week the world has its own type of love and it's not God's love you see what the world espouses is to love your things and use people around you to get more of your things this is the world's dead thinking brothers and sisters but our God tells us that we love one another we don't love things we love people we love one another as he has loved us we use things not people this is the way the world is and as I was saying as you look around you know people going about their everyday business okay they're they're raising their families they're pursuing their hobbies they're working their jobs all these people they may be charming they may be intellectual they may all maybe all these different things but the actuality of it is they are dead and we're talking about spiritual death of course Paul writes in Ephesians two and one then until the Holy Spirit quickens men it's a spiritual life they are dead in trespasses and sins so let me ask another question I'm gonna get a little bit more personal with this does a message in the bones apply to us here today you know we as it says those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it and is the old saying we understand that we were by nature in our original sin nature dry bones just as they were dead in trespasses and sins jesus said flesh gives birth to flesh but Spirit gives birth to spirit okay and in summarizing Romans 8 verses 6 through 8 the sinful man is death the sinful mind is hostile to God it does not submit to God's law nor can it do so those that are controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God we give thanks to God that he has brought us to life he's given us a new nature and this is not by our own doing but all by His grace his mercy and his powerful powerful salvation but let me ask you how are we doing right now how are we doing right now as God looks at Messiah Reformed Church what does he see does he see that powerful arming that he had built up as we looked in these verses standing before him or is Messiah Church to some degree like the dry bones in the valley let's take an honest look at our spiritual diet let's take an honest look at our spiritual lifestyle and let's take an honest look at our environments and make as a forensic pathologist would do make a determination based on the evidence are we feeding our souls and our minds with the humanistic liberalist ik ideology that strikes death blows at our soul are we putting things in our minds and before our eyes that cause certain death spiritually the things that we watch in movies the things that we watch on television the things that we listen to in music are these things life-giving or are they life stealing this is a time of examination you understand because first of all humanism tells us that we are God we should listen to ourselves okay the materialism says that it's about getting all the toys whoever dies with the most toys wins okay exist existentialism tells us that there are no moral absolutes there is no right and wrong whatever is right for you is right and whatever is wrong for you is wrong and unfortunately sadly a lot of this has begun to trickle and is being given place in God's church and as long as churches God's called churches allow this cancer to fester in their bodies the result will always be the same that which was alive will slowly begin to decrepid ate and waste away this is the word of warning that we hear from prophet Ezekiel today to take careful examination of our diet to take careful examination of our lifestyle to take careful examination of our environment those are sisters so let's consider then how sin can make us into these dry bones he's given us his powerful word for our benefit what are we doing with it do we leave it unread and unapplied to our lives this will cause you brothers and sisters to dry out and rot our time of devotion with the Lord are we more acquainted with our morning TV shows that we are with the Lord this kind of thing brothers and sisters will cause us to dry out and rot away instead of being content with the material things that he has blessed us with they have instead become what we pursue they lead us down their path rather than them following us down the path which he has prepared for us brothers and sisters these things will cause us to dry out and you're right what then are some of the results of this we can look we don't have to look very far builders and sisters we look at first of all things like our worship it becomes robotic it becomes half-hearted it becomes something that we go through the motions and do this is a sign of drying out and decaying brothers and sisters we have to realize what a privilege it is to come before him as a church body as his blood purchase church to worship his name when we lose sight of that when we lose you know we're really focused on being in truth but when we lose the spirit that goes along with worshipping Him in spirit and in truth it becomes a routine okay now it's time to turn to this one okay I wonder what this one sounds like okay let's love all sing sing sing no listen we have come into his house together in his name and worship Him the old song says forget about yourselves concentrate on him and worship Him Christ our Lord our daily walk with the Lord can also be affected by this instead of it being a daily walk it then becomes a daily struggle to us it starts becoming easier and easier and easy and easier to go along to get along you know what I'm talking about those of you that are in the workforce you come around your co-workers and the conversations in the office is inevitably shift the things that aren't work related and are very inappropriate you know for a while we have our guard up and we don't draw in but after a while we start snickering and then sooner or later we start contributing our daily walk then becomes a daily struggle when we have allowed the rut of unchecked sin in our lives to fester and certainly when we become tolerant of it when we become tolerant of the sin in our lives it will take those bones dry and bleach them out our service to God then becomes motivated by guilt instead of serving him with joy recognizing what a privilege that it is to serve Him the fact is brothers and sisters we need to hear a word from the Lord and I'm so glad that we are all here today because God asks the question of the Prophet verse three son of man can these bones live this is the question that God posed to Ezekiel and he answered it and the only way that a man could all sovereign Lord you know the answer if the dry bones were gonna come back to life and have any sort of activity is gonna take and divine intervention okay it was not something these decrepit and dry bones could do in and of themselves it was not a choice that they could make you know what I am sick and tired of this scenario of being a dry bone I think that I'm gonna get it together and become flesh and muscle and stand again know the dry bones coming back to life were a result of the interaction and the power of God so the vision that he saw then points us to this truth listen as he says then he said to me prophesy to these bones and say to them dry bones hear the word of the Lord and this is what he says thus says the Lord God to these bones behold I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life that's verse 5 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin I will put breath in you and you will come to life and listen then you will know that I am the Lord I don't want to get too far ahead of myself but to say that when God intervenes when we're in the situation's and in our own captivity and led away and we don't have the power anymore to change course and correct ourselves when he comes in I don't want to get too far ahead of myself a little bit in but we know without a doubt that he is God the results of the preached word of course were miraculous in that situation listen what Ezekiel says so I prophesied as I was commanded and I was prophesying as I was prophesying there was a noise a rattling sound and the bones came together bone to bone I looked and tendons of flesh tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them but there was no breath and then they came together but yet there was no life we see this happen often when some believers they are brought in by the power of his Redemption but they don't put themselves in a place where the Word of God is ministering to them or they though if the word is coming forth they are not in a place where they can receive regularly this word of God they are lacking the breath that animates them okay the point being that he spoke to his prophet and commanded them he commanded him to speak to the four corners and let the breath come into them come from the four winds o breeze excuse me o breath and breathe into the slain that they may live so I prophesied as he commanded me listen and breath entered them and they came to life and stood up on their feet of vast army this wasn't some sort of bucket brigade that he saw this was Custer's last stand this was a vast army the power of his word brothers and sisters is not something that we should consider lightly the power of his word in our lives that brings that spiritual breath and power is more than enough brothers and sisters to overcome any and everything in this world he has made us more than what conquerors Eppie soon you go gay so when we as a church body as believers witness things going on around us and we feel that outrage in that just complete disaffection coming up willing up deep with inside us you know we don't sit on our hands brothers and sisters we are an occupying army you know that the occupying army is controlling everything that's going on in the landscape why because they have the power to do it if the Army is aware that they are in fact occupying then things that don't follow the ideology of the person the king the leader that sent the army go on the army has been given the authority to put them to an end so with that in mind brothers and sisters why are we tolerating number one sin in our own lives and number two sin around us affecting our communities affecting our families affecting our children affecting every aspect of the life that we've been given to live here we're an occupying army so this is what God has been saying to the children of Israel and Israelites through his prophets and even to us today picking Vic's of our sin and if we look back one chapter just in ezekiel 36 he says I will give you a heart of flesh take away that heart of stone this is a new nature brothers and sisters if any one of us here had our hearts removed what would happen to the activity of our body if the blood is no longer being pumped to all of our vital systems if we can we operate without a heart No so when the heart is transformed there is a cumulative effect through all the systems in the body no longer having that sinful nature being given the divine nature has an all-encompassing effect brothers and sisters and this is why this is why I'm emphasizing to you today to be mindful of our diets spiritually be mindful of our lives spiritually be mindful of our environments because we want to cultivate life as it has been given to us we want to cultivate that transforming power that is a direct result of that heart transplant hear the word of the Lord dry bones so they were animated they stood up on their feet God brought them to life we should brothers and sisters have burden for one another when we see that our brother or our sister in this body even it's struggling through things we ought to be burden to stand alongside them those of you that watched they'd like to watch certain war movies there's a certain thing that they say when the enemies are attacking them and they're being pushed back there will be a shout that goes out you know y'all will know what I'm talking about the word is the words are hold the line what does hold the line mean it means don't fall back we are going to stand together and push forward the line is a line of demarcation and the enemy will go no further than this line so as I was saying when we see our brother or our sister struggling we're not going to just put the blinders on and begin stepping away no we're gonna stand together just like this vast army and hold that line we come alongside our brother and sister support them pray for them counsel them speak to them the truth that they need to hear in a spirit of love Paul writes I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love let's play or pray earnestly brothers and sisters for one another that we would have the ability to stand all right how were they associated as I said an exceedingly great army one moment you had a valley covered and filled with bones and in another moment of time you had a living breathing vast army ready for his use this is the work of the Holy Spirit brothers and sisters and bringing us into what's being said here as a church body this is the work of the Holy Spirit in the church by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body first Corinthians 12:13 says so let us keep them the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace as his fusions four and three so God brings us then as I said earlier out of a condition of death and a heart of stone gives us life and a new nature gives us to serve Him and binds us together in a local body we're no longer isolated but as Philippians 1:27 says we stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving separately no striving together for the faith of the gospel so there is some assurance then I'm gonna tip down into verse 14 just a little bit here I and shall put my spirit in you and you shall live I shall place you in your own land this was an assurance given to the people of Israel that they would not only be restored to their land but that the blessings would begin to flow again and he ends it with then you shall know that I the LORD have spoken it and performant as I would say in foundations class fairly often we hear a lot of promises from a lot of people oh I'll be there at such-and-such time I'll be there on such-and-such a day oh I'll bring you this oh I'll give you that how many times what percentage do you think of the promises that we hear so often are actually delivered upon exactly exactly but this is a sure thing but those ancestors because as I said the veracity of the promises being fulfilled rely upon the person or the individual making the promise its sovereign work and he will perform as he says he does and now we need to realize brothers and sisters that the days of blessing and refreshing they're not over it's not done he is still going to do a work in his body today he works in the supernatural and the sovereign way to accomplish his will in the world what we need to do instead of seeking after gaining more things instead of seeking after gaining more well instead of seeking after gaining more authority how about we seek after him and the life that he brings how about we seek and make our focus on his life-giving Holy Spirit we read in romans 8 and 11 and if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you he who raised Christ them dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who lives in you let me just read it right here we are going to remain in a dry and rotted State if we don't hear that word of God we have to receive his word I have a point that I'm gonna make a little later but let me just hit on it right now the Avenue is his word the power is in his spirit if we're not going to hear his word and receive his word how can we then receive the power that is within his spirit you know some Sundays we come in here and we just kind of slide into our seats and just feel our bones beginning to Creek a little bit but you know as Tony was praying this morning and then and I'm glad he mentioned this you know we hear the word of God in the hymns that we sing we sing these scriptures arranged in a musical format we hear the word of God being read and then we hear the Ministry of the word coming forth from the pulpit this takes us in our minds into first Peter ok chapter 2 verses 2 & 3 reminds us that like newborn babies crave the pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation now that you have tasted that the Lord is good let us be the type of people brothers and sisters that seek after his word we put a lot of time and effort into the things that entertain us don't we we can always seem to make time to catch a favorite TV show but where does that energy suddenly go when it's involving getting the Word of God to your inner man we've all been there at some point in time but allow me to remind you brothers and sisters that we need his life in us looking again at 11 through 14 dry bones hear the word of the Lord only God's Word can give life to dry bones and then we had the assurances that are given by God as to what he will do he then brothers and sisters can bring us completely back from an area of spiritual dryness dry bones hear the word of the Lord we can be brought out of that condition as believers brothers and sisters not just those that haven't been brought into regeneration but us here believers that have allowed and given place to sit in our lives that may be become to the point of deterioration we can hear the word of the Lord and have life placed in these spiritually speaking dry bones we must learn to rely on that power of His Holy Spirit as I said at the beginning bones can tell us many types of detailed stories if you're trained in examining them sometimes they fill in parts that are missing from history after a person dies sometimes their bones will give more information as to the events surrounding their death the bones that Ezekiel saw did in fact tell the story of how sin will eat away and rot a spiritual life but as he says brothers and sisters they point to the Holy Spirit as a source of life for all of us and I'm winding down here so let us give attention each and every one of us here today and those of you that may be listening over the internet if you have done as I've asked and taken an inventory had an honest conversation while looking at your own life if you're looking at your spiritual diet if you're looking at your spiritual living if you're looking at your environment and you see that time and time and time again we are receiving fatal blows to our souls I'm here to tell you this morning dry bones hear the word of the Lord he will bring life to you we are by nature brothers and sisters before he has changed us rebelling we are rebels to his law we are dead and don't even know it but he can bring us back to life actually he can give us new life I should say correctly new life and if we put by chance were in a position of life but we have become apathetic and tolerant of the sin in our lives we also can hear this word of the Lord where he says I will bring life to you behold I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life I need to inform you if you don't know already know that there is nothing in and of yourself that you can do to bring about his salvation there is nothing brothers and sisters at the dry bone separated in the valley that you can do to bring yourself back together but his word has come forth to you whether you are spiritually dead whether you are in a state of spiritual deterioration his word is effective and powerful for you his word will not return to Him void so here what thus says the Lord and experience his life-giving Holy Spirit if you hear him beckoning you then if you can hear let me tell you brothers and sisters it's not because you have chosen him he has chosen you and as much as you may deny it if you hear these words of life he will drag you kicking and streaming into his great salvation and then you will look at your life and look back and wonder where if it weren't for the Lord brothers and sisters where would I be that's right our Father in heaven how grateful we are that your Holy Spirit is still striving with us we ask the father that the lessons we have learned from your word today that we take heart to them they will not let it go in one ear and come out the other but rather father that your Holy Spirit just turned the light on in our lives whether we are unregenerate and apart from you in Salvation or whether we have become lacks whether we have become apathetic whether we have become tolerant of the sin in our lives and are beginning to waste away renew us put us back together again father according to your order put muscles and scan upon us and let your breath of life be breathe into us yet again father we ask this in the name of Jesus amen

Channel: Bryan D

Views: 17,216

Rating: 4.5887852 out of 5

Keywords: Dr. Kelly Nelson Birks, Reformed, Calvinism, Bible teaching, expository, verse by verse, preterism, Messiah Church, Ezekiel (Religious Leader)

Id: p3r_o4tJTAU

Length: 53min 5sec (3185 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 15 2015