We read together this evening from the Word of God as we find it in the Old Testament in the prophecy of Ezekiel. And we read together in Ezekiel chapter 37 from the beginning of the chapter. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me to and fro among them, and I saw a great many bones in the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, Son of man, can these bones live? I said, O sovereign Lord, you alone know. Then he said to me, Prophecy to these bones, and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones, I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. 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. Then you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, Prophecy to the breath, prophecy, Son of Man, and say to it, This is what the Sovereign Lord says, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live.' So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet a vast army. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone. We are cut off. Therefore, prophesy and say to them, This is what the Sovereign Lord says, O My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, My people, will know that I am the Lord. When I open your graves and bring you up from them, I will put My Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done it. declares the Lord." Sometimes preachers get the impression, sometimes a very strong impression, that they are preaching to dead men and women. The present company, of course, accepted. Sometimes preachers are preaching to dead men and women. A preacher in a congregation can sometimes sense a lethargy, an indifference among his hearers. Congregations aren't always conscious of that, but preachers can sense the spirit in a gathering of people. There are congregations in which I may have preached a number of times and I've never felt I had a good day there. Now part of the fault, of course, may be mine, But you may be entitled to wonder. Sometimes we feel perhaps the message isn't getting through. There's no sense of response on the part of the hearers. There's no evidence that they are really receiving the word. And of course, over a longer period of time, preachers may become aware that they can see no response on the part of those who are listening to them week by week. no evidence of a changed life, of the Word taking root and bearing fruit. And for a preacher, that of course is a tremendously discouraging experience. If any preacher ever preached to dead men, surely it was Ezekiel. Because on one occasion, literally, Ezekiel was preaching to bones, the famous valley out of dry bones. Ezekiel was a man called to a prophetic ministry among the exiles from Judah. After the nation and the city of Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, God had exercised righteous judgment on Judah as he had warned them many times. The best of the people were taken off to Babylon. The remnant were left in Jerusalem. It was probably the darkest time in the history of God's people. Experiences that raised profound questions and doubts in the hearts both of those who were taken away and those who remained behind. Ezekiel, like the other prophets, was called to say hard things to the people, things that many of them wouldn't want to hear. But that was not all. that Ezekiel was to proclaim. He also was given a message of hope and encouragement. And we find something of that encouragement in the portion we read earlier in Ezekiel 37. And it's to those verses that we now want to turn. Ezekiel 37 and verses 1 to 14. And we consider them under the title, Life from the Dead. Life from the Dead. Here are verses to challenge us and, I trust, to bring us tremendous encouragement as we think of the greatness and the power of the God whom we profess to serve. Life from the Dead We think first in looking at these verses of the resurrection of Israel, because that's where our consideration must begin. As always, we come to the Old Testament Scriptures, we need to think of them in their immediate context. What do these words signify to the people to whom Ezekiel was preaching? We begin there, we'll not stop there as we'll see, but that's where we have to start. The resurrection of Israel. We think first of a hopeless situation, because that is how it seemed. All hope appeared to have gone. Jerusalem had fallen, the holy city. That was a crushing blow to the faith of the people of Judah. It's hard for us to put ourselves back into their situation, to try to imagine the trauma that they went through when Jerusalem was conquered by the heathen. Here was the city of God. And as long as Jerusalem stood, they could convince themselves, God is with us, God is among us. But what happened when Jerusalem had fallen? The people were devastated. Now, despite the prophet's warnings as to what would happen if the people persisted in their sins, Now the city had been destroyed, their nation was a ruin. Most of them were in exile in a foreign country among people who had no regard for their God or for their worship. Dry bones. And that surely was a very evocative, a very powerful description of the condition of these people. They are dry bones. The life has been wrung out of them. Here are people who have lost hope, who cannot look to the future with any confidence whatsoever. If we think of them just in political terms, the nation has been destroyed, the best of the people are now in exile. Many of them are being pressed into service in Babylon, we think of Daniel and his three friends. and the nation seems to have no future. Who could imagine Judah ever being restored? There's nothing there. The people who are left are the poorest, the least skilled, people who offer little hope for the future of any nation. Far worse, surely, is their spiritual condition. Oh, politically they're devastated, but spiritually there's deadness, a great deal of unbelief, Hopelessness. It seems they've been forsaken by the Lord. And for many, of course, that was the worst thing of all. It was not simply that their beautiful city had been destroyed. It was not merely that the temple was a ruin. The sacrifices couldn't be offered. That was horrendous. But it seemed God had forsaken them. And what had they to cling to? What was left when all of that had been taken? Probably by this stage in Ezekiel's ministry, the people have been in Babylon for about 10 years. Ezekiel himself, of course, was one of the exiles. He'd experienced all this himself. Ezekiel was not in some sheltered ivory tower, secure from the trauma. that his fellow countrymen had gone through. He had experienced it. He was in exile. And some of what God had required him to do in his ministry had stretched him to the very limits. And we can hear the heart cry of the people in Psalm 137 and verse 4. How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land that they haven't even the heart You can say, to sing the Psalms, because was God listening to them anyway? God seemed to have washed his hands of them. And here were these people who once had been so proud spiritually, who'd presumed on the Lord's presence with them. And now they're in despair. Verse 11, our bones are dried up. And our hope is gone. We are cut off. And surely, as verse 2 describes them, they are very dry. No life left. No hope. Ezekiel had been bringing them messages of encouragement, of hope, that God would do something in future for them. You can turn back to chapter 34, for example. And there Ezekiel spoke about how God would provide them a new shepherd, a faithful shepherd. He'd spoken of a covenant of peace. There were words of hope. And yet the people couldn't even bring themselves to believe the prophet's words. They are dead hearers. Humanly speaking, there's no hope. And so when the Lord asks Ezekiel, can these bones live? The only answer Ezekiel can give the Lord, sovereign Lord, you alone know. Ezekiel has no idea. Even the prophet of God is struggling to have any hope. He looks at the situation as he sees it, particularly in this vision. And he says, literally, the Lord alone knows whether there's any hope for these people. But as we think of the resurrection of Israel, we think too of a divine response alongside the hopeless situation. Humanly it is hopeless, but there's a divine response. Because we see here in this passage the power of God to bring life to the dead. There is a resurrection. We see it as it's described here in two stages. Ezekiel is the prophecy to the bones. You can imagine him addressing bones. Humanly, it's folly. Utterly futile. What will ever come of this? But Ezekiel obeys his God because he knows God is a God of power. A God who gives life. And the bones are commanded to hear the word of the Lord. And there's a measure of response in verses 7 and 8. The bones come together, the sinews, the flesh, the skin. Something's happening. Something is changing, but there's still no life. There's no breath. And so verse 9, Ezekiel receives the command, prophecy to the breath. And in Hebrew, breath and wind and spirit are all the same word. Prophecy to the wind, prophecy to the spirit, and God works. God works in a miraculous way. Life-giving power is put forth. Life flows into those dead bodies. Verse 10, they came to life, stood up on their feet. God's at work. The God who gave life at the very beginning in Genesis now performs a work of re-creation. God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, Genesis 2 said. And here again God breathes life into the dead. And the result? A vast army. The Lord explains the significance in verses 12 and 13 and 14. Israel would experience a resurrection and a return to their own land. God will bring them back. God will restore them. And it will be His work. Do you read through those verses? Do you notice again and again, I, I, I am going to open your graves. I will bring you back. It's God who will work. Nobody else can do it. There's no hope in any human being. Not in Ezekiel. Not in anyone else. God must work. And God will work. And it will not simply be a political restoration to nationhood. God will do a work of spiritual transformation. Verse 14, I will put my spirit in you. And the result? You will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done. There will be a spiritual transformation. A renewed people will be brought back and restored. God will do something that they could not have imagined or dared to hope for. And the people will be turned back. Their hearts will be turned back to the Lord. Here is a word of hope. Not a manufactured, man-made hope, but a hope in the Lord who gives life, not just life to bodies, But life to the soul. He is the sovereign life giver. There will be a resurrection for Israel. A restoration. And we know as we read on in the history of the scriptures, we know that in the days of Zerubbabel and Ezra, the people were brought back and there was a rebuilding of the temple, a rebuilding of Jerusalem. God kept His word. And we could stop there. We could stop at that point. God promised a restoration. The people were brought back. God kept his word. End of story. And we would have essentially a good synagogue sermon, but never left the Old Testament. we would have expounded the passage faithfully. We would have given its meaning. Everything we have said would be true to the Word of God. And yet if we stop at this point, we are missing the most profound significance of Ezekiel 37. Because we must see this passage not simply in the context of the Old Testament, but in the context of the whole saving purpose of God. that did not end Malachi or in the Jewish Bible with Chronicles, but continued to glorious new levels in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we need to go on in the second place to consider the renewal of sinners. Because the return of the Jews to their land under Zerubbabel and Ezra does not exhaust the significance of Ezekiel's vision And we need to understand that for our whole understanding of the prophetic scriptures. When the Israelites were back in Jerusalem and the city was rebuilt and the temple worship restored, that was only a stage on the way to the fulfillment of God's purpose. Remember how the New Testament describes the church in language that is used of Israel in the Old Testament. 1 Peter 2 and verse 9, we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the Church of Jesus Christ. Galatians 6.16, we are the Israel of God. And so we must move on from the immediate fulfilment in the Old Testament period, to see that this Word of the Lord finds its fulfillment in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the church that He is building. Because the purpose of God is to redeem a people for Himself that is made up of Jews and Gentiles. God's purpose does not end with the Jews. If you turn to that great central portion of Romans, Romans 9-11, you'll read of how there is one olive tree made up of Jews and Gentiles who know the Lord. Not two olive trees, one Jewish and one Gentile, God having separate purposes for them. One olive tree. made up of Jews and Gentiles. One church of all who believe in Messiah Jesus, regardless of race. The Lord Jesus Christ came preaching the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Read the Gospels. Isn't that the heart of Jesus' preaching? You have it in Mark 1. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the good news. Jesus proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God. The reign of God has come in a powerful new way in the person of the king himself. And it is a kingdom that will embrace not only Jews, but people of all races. And so the Lord says in Matthew 8-11, many from the east and the west will come and sit down at the feast in the kingdom of God. Gentiles will come and sit at the feast of the kingdom with the Jewish patriarchs, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the others who believe in the Lord. And we must say that the vision of Ezekiel embraces the gospel age. if we are to understand its deepest meaning, we must hear in this chapter C the powerful, gracious working of the Lord through the proclamation of the gospel applied by the Holy Spirit. Think of our condition by nature. Doesn't Paul tell us in Ephesians 2, verse 1, we were dead in transgressions and sins? In the deepest sense, we are dry bones by nature. There is no life in us, not a breath. We are dry bones and we are helpless to change ourselves. We are, in the language of Ephesians 2, verse 12, without hope and without God in the world. What is the answer to our deadness and our dryness? Isn't it the God of Ezekiel? The God who gives life, a sovereign God, who is able to take those dead in transgressions and sins and make them alive in Jesus Christ and make them children of God. You've thought a little of this already today, but it bears any amount of repetition. The good news of the Gospel is that God, on the basis of the finished atoning work of Jesus, makes dead sinners live. We who were dry bones may become children of the living God. So Paul writes in Ephesians 2.5, God made us alive with Christ. There, of course, is the heart of the Gospel. It is Christ crucified and risen. And He has raised us up with Christ. Paul goes on to say in verse 6, Already we have been raised with Christ spiritually. Those who are in Christ are no longer dry bones. They are a mighty army. And that is the present experience of every child of God, made alive, raised with Christ. And it is a miracle. It is a miracle. Sometimes, perhaps, we feel, oh, I would love to experience a miracle. We listen to those, perhaps from other Christian circles and groups, and they talk about miracles they've experienced. And we think, I would love to experience a miracle. You have. If you're saved, you've experienced the greatest miracle that you will ever experience. Because you were dead. And God has made you alive. Is there any greater miracle possible than that? We are born again of the Spirit of God. And by the working of the Spirit of God, the dry bones can live. The God of Ezekiel is the sinner's hope. There is life, spiritual life, in the Lord. And indeed, physical death will not have the victory over those that God has made His own. There is also physical life that we anticipate and look forward to because the same God who raised up His Son, Jesus Christ, will raise up His people too. The Lord does not only save souls. Sometimes we use that kind of language and we understand it, I trust. But God does not just save souls, He saves people. People who have bodies. And our bodies are included in redemption. And they will be transformed as Christ was raised from the dead. so all who are in Christ likewise will be raised from the dead. Our hope is not just the immortality of our souls in heaven forever. Our hope is the resurrection of our bodies to be reunited with our souls and to be with the Lord in the new creation for eternity. Turn up 1 Corinthians 15. Read there of Christ's resurrection. And He's the firstfruits. And the firstfruits were the first part of the harvest. And when you saw the firstfruits being brought in, you knew the harvest was certainly coming. Christ has been raised. And now we know that the harvest of resurrection is coming. We will be raised with Him. We will experience life. in its fullness. The Lord will transform His people. Philippians 3.21 The Lord will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body. That is our full Christian hope. We will be saved soul and body. And it is God's work. It is the work of Christ. And it is the work of the Father and of the Spirit, as Romans 8.11 tells us. The triune God, the giver of life, makes us alive spiritually and will raise our bodies from the dust to worship and serve Him for eternity. That is the fulfilment of Ezekiel 37. We are the dry bones in which God pours life in Jesus Christ and we are raised up a mighty army. That is the sure hope of every Christian. The Lord will finish the work he has begun. If we have been born again of the Spirit, we will be raised with Christ and share in his glory. God who made the bones in the valley live will make us live eternally with Christ. The renewal of sinners. There's a word that's full of hope. Here's the gospel in the Old Testament in Ezekiel 37. We preach the gospel as the apostles did from the Old Testament because it's there. Here's the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's the resurrection of Israel. There's the renewal of sinners. But we haven't quite exhausted Ezekiel's vision just yet. Because we need to think, finally, of the revival of the Church. The revival of the Church. Because so often we think individualistically, don't we? We think solely of my relationship to the Lord. Now that is foundational, that is essential. But the Bible speaks in terms of a community of God's people. The body of Christ, the Church, not just of isolated individuals. And surely there's an application of Ezekiel 37 to the body of God's people. Because aren't there times when the church seems to reach the same condition as the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision? When it seems there is nothing but dryness and deadness and hopelessness. It can be true of a congregation. It can be true of a wider body of professing believers. You think of the church at Sardis in Revelation 3.1. You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead. It can happen. And God is not deceived by outward appearances and no amount of outward activity. can really disguise inward deadness, indifference to the things of God. There can be among God's people a sense of hopelessness and so easily we slip into feeling nothing can be done. It will never be any different and our hope disappears. Surely the vision of Ezekiel 37 gives us hope when we see deadness in the professing church. It spurs us to expectant prayer, does it not? Our God is the creator, our God is the giver of life. Deuteronomy 32, 39, I put to death and I bring to life. And that is true not only of individuals, but of bodies, of gatherings, of professing believers. God is a God who revives the dry bones and can give life. He can revive us individually. That's where we need to begin. He can revive us as congregations. He can revive His whole church after days of declension and darkness. Isn't that what happened in 1859? That revival came not to multitudes of people who were looking for it. It came when a tiny handful were praying and most were indifferent and were not thinking of revival at all. And God worked powerfully and the dry bones came to life. God hasn't changed. The God of Ezekiel is the God of 1859, but he's the God of the 21st century. and how we should long and pray for reviving power in the professing Church and in our own hearts and lives. Here's a God who in place of hopelessness and indifference and deadness can give life abundant, overflowing life, an army that will serve Him and that will go into battle in His name. And don't we need that in the deadness of our own nation and our own culture? We need an army. of God's people, filled with life, with a renewed commitment to the Lord. And God can do it if He wills. We ought to be praying and longing for such a work. And the glory will never be ours. Let's rid our minds of any ideas of people being impressed with how active and how alive the Reformed Presbyterian Church is. That's not our concern. It is God's glory. And that people will know that God has done it. And if we have any ideas of our glory, God will not do it. Because He will not give His glory to another. God of reviving power who made the bones live in Ezekiel's day. who has made bones live in our own hearts and lives if we're saved this evening, and who can make bones live in the church when he comes powerfully by his Spirit. How we need that power in our own hearts and lives. How we need it in the church that we might be an army to go into battle for the Lord, to seek his honour and his glory. May we know the power of the Spirit giving life, reviving, refreshing and sending us forth into service.