Well, have you ever had an impossible situation and you had no idea what to do? You didn't know if you should go left, right, forward or backward. Perhaps you stood and you were discouraged at particular moments in your life. And it seemed utterly hopeless before you found yourself on the other side. We see many such glimpses in the word of God, such as Moses. when he stood with the Israelites before the Red Sea parted. David, when he stood before a giant, before he slung a stone and took off Goliath's head with his own sword. Joshua, before he took that seventh trip around the walls of Jericho, before they came crashing down. And of course, who can forget the disheartened disciples just after Christ's crucifixion, before their eyes gazed upon the risen Lord. David wrote, even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, because he experienced being in such a valley before he came through it. And this morning in Ezekiel 37, we meet a prophet of God that stared death in its face. priests at death. And so God bring resurrection and revival in a valley of dry bones, in a decrepit boneyard. And so this morning, the title of this message, which I've changed several times, is called Revival in a Valley of Bones. Revival in a Valley of Bones. The least likely place you would find revival. And this morning, I have three points to share with you, and they're not on the back of your bulletin, but you can write it on the back of your bulletin. And my first point is, number one, the picture God paints. The picture God paints, found in verses one through three. Secondly, the pronouncement Ezekiel preaches. The pronouncement Ezekiel preaches found in verses 4 through 7. And finally, number 3, the power God provides in verses 8 through 10. Would you stand with me as I read Ezekiel chapter 37, verse 1 through 11, but I will only concentrate on verses 1 through 10. But for context sake, we'll read verse 11. And God's word reads, The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and sent me down in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones. And he led me around among them. And behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley. And behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, you know. Then he said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them, Oh, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones. Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live and I will lay sinews upon you and you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And behold, as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and the flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they stood and they lived and stood on their feet and exceedingly great army. Verse 11 for context. Then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off. You may be seated. Well, let me give you some background about what's happening here in this book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel, whose name means strengthened by God, is given a vision to proclaim and dramatize the message of God to his exiled people. The immediate context is truly the restoration of Israel. But there's so much more here going on than simply bringing Israel out of exile. There is a mountainous, majestic, mighty spiritual awakening as we see the jaw-dropping work of God that God can only bring forth. This text has been used down through the ages as an example and to describe the genuine and unadulterated work of conversion, whether of an individual or of a massive group of revived souls. As we look at this text, Through this lens, there are many truths to glean and apply to the Christian walk, to labor, to the laborer, to the evangelist, to the missionary, to the mother, to the father, to the disciple of Christ. And so in verses one through three, we see the presence of God first. We see the picture that God paints before us. And the vision that God gives to Ezekiel is certainly a gruesome one. But notice the first thing that we see is not the vision of the bones, but where is the focus? It's on the presence of God. Well, why is that? Why didn't he point him to his task and say, okay, go? He doesn't do that. You see, because if you don't have the presence of God with you and in you, you can't see reality. You can't see truth. God's hand was upon His servant. His Spirit was resting upon Ezekiel. Is His hand upon you this morning? Is His Spirit saturating your life? God's presence went before God's people when He approached the Red Sea and then sent a highway through the waters. He made a way where there seemed to be no way. His presence was with David. to slay Goliath. And it was with Ezekiel, before the dry bones, which would be brought to life by the preaching of God's Word, empowered by the very Spirit of God. You see, God's presence on Ezekiel was necessary, because how could he bear to look at all that death and not shrivel up within if the Spirit of God was not pulsating through his life. William Greenhill stated, It denotes the virtue and power of the Spirit of God, which came upon the prophet, not shaking, disturbing, or throwing of him down, but changing, comforting, elevating, and exciting the spirit of the prophet to see divine mysteries. That power which subdued all opposition, and carnal reasoning, and removed all impediments whatsoever struck upon the heart of the prophet, and hindered him in that work which God would have him dare to undertake." Does this describe you? Is there a sense that God's presence abides in your life? Do you have a closet time with God, alone time with God. You might want to represent the Lord, but you have unhurried, unhindered time with him. Do you ever carve out time in your day just to be alone, undistracted by everything else around you? Do you do that? Have you ever spent hours alone with God? Sure, we spend hours at work, at play with family. friends on the Internet, on YouTube, on Facebook. But where are the hours spent alone with God, knowing Him and pouring your heart out before His throne of grace, confessing your sin before the one that atoned for it, being encouraged by the lover of your soul, resting before Him? Does that sound like you? Recall how Martha ran around serving Jesus. And there was nothing wrong with her running around to serve Jesus. Service is good. We are called to serve. But where was Mary? Well, a frustrated Martha found Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and complained to the highest heavens. Oh, Saint, yes, we are called to serve. But first we must sit. to be empowered to serve mightily before God and rightly in His sight. If we're not sitting, how can we serve? Because if we don't sit, we forget who we serve and why we serve. We can just be like a hamster on the wheel, just going through the motions and forgetting the very purpose for which we're serving and the very Lord to whom we serve. The picture of reality. Don't think that God's presence with you means that everything is going to be hunky dory. For God's hand was upon Joseph and he was led into slavery before he was raised up to be the prime minister of Egypt during a famine that would feed the entire world, including his own family, including Judah, which from that line would come the Lord Jesus Christ. God's presence was surely saturating the life of His Son, the Lord Jesus, and He wore a crown of thorns. God's presence was upon Peter, upon Paul, and they spent nights in jail. God's presence will take you through times when you're very uncomfortable, and that doesn't mean that God is not with you. He was very much there. But how can you be at peace in this life apart from the presence of God? If you don't have God's presence with you, you don't walk in God's presence. How can that be comfortable? How can you live day to day, go to work and do everything you do apart from the very presence of God? Samson was given over to sin, specifically lust. And when his wife said the Philistines are upon you, Samson, he awoke from his sleep. And this is what he said. I will go out. as at other times and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had left him. Wow. He didn't know the Lord left him. It seemed like another day in the life of Samson. But if the Lord wasn't with him, what happened? He was captured. They ripped his eyes out of his sockets. You want to walk without God? John MacArthur stated that Samson experienced the tragedy of the wrath of abandonment. His sin had caused him to forfeit the power of God's presence. I'm not saying you could lose your salvation, for surely you can't. But rather, not being with God means that you're powerless against sin and powerless to serve Him. How can you serve God if you don't have His power, if you don't have His presence? In Luke 24, the disciples were walking with Christ unbeknown to themselves on the road to Emmaus. And Jesus initially, He keeps their eyes from recognizing Him. And then He would open their eyes so they would recognize Him. See, because God's presence was with Ezekiel. Ezekiel could now be led to recognize and see what God willed for him to see. But the catalyst was the presence of God. You see, God's presence, God's perception is not like ours. But we need to see as he sees. God wanted Ezekiel to see what he saw, and only God could make this a reality. We must have the presence of God upon us to see the spiritual realities around us. Just as dogs hear the high frequency sound of a dog whistle, whereas you and I as humans cannot, so too must you have the presence of God for your spiritual senses to pick up on the spiritual realities all around you. You need God to guide your perception of all things. Why? Because God doesn't see as man sees. 1 Samuel 16, verse 7. Now listen to what Isaiah says in chapter 55, verse 8 and 9. He says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. How can we see as God sees? We must have a biblical worldview. Now, this week I sent both a text message and an email for some of you to take the biblical worldview test. How many did that? Okay, how many were happy with the results? For some it was, ugh, for some it was good. But we don't naturally have a biblical worldview. And if we're not in God's word constantly and in prayer constantly, that worldview cannot be built up to be biblical. Because the world is like a fire hydrant is just firing lies at you each and every day. And if you're not in God's word, you're gonna get another view And it's not from God. And if you haven't taken that, I would encourage you to do so. So what is a biblical worldview? Well, it's like a puzzle. For those of you that do puzzles or did them when you were younger, the first thing you do is you take the box and you open it up and you pour the pieces out on the table. And then you take the top of the box and you set it to the side so you can look at the picture on the box so that what you make in front of you should look like what's on that box. Then you pick up an individual piece and you compare it to the whole and you place that individual piece where you perceive it to fit. Well, life gives you information. It gives you a scenario, a piece, if you will. And in your mind, because of your worldview, you place that piece in conjunction to the whole. And you are doing this every day of your life. When things come across you politically, socially, economically, educationally, you will filter it through your worldview. You will. If I throw out words, social justice, immigration, Obama, Donald Trump, if I throw all kinds of things, abortion, homosexuality, right now your worldview is moving around on what you think about these things that I just said. You have a worldview on which you take everything you hear and you filter it through your worldview and you act forth from it. See, your worldview is like a compass, either pointing you toward the worship of God or toward idolatry. Do you want a higher paying job to keep up with the Joneses or so that you can better provide for your family and give more and help more and give more to the things of God? And help those in need. This is why parents, you must train the hearts of your children toward the worship of God and not toward idolatry. If you ever wonder why I have my children sitting in service, it's because of my worldview, my wife's worldview. We want our kids when they're age 18 to still be looking up and hearing the preaching of God's word. Now, I'm not discouraging anybody else if they don't do that, but I'm just telling you, I do it because of my worldview. You see, your worldview is the foundation of your values, and your values are the foundation of your actions. If we're sat in a dark room, and I took an orange out of my pocket, and I said, Nick, what color is this orange? He's going to say it's black. And if I take a flashlight out of my other pocket and shine a light on that orange, and I said, Nick, what color is the orange? He's going to say it's orange. Well, what made the difference? because he saw it in the light of truth. And we need to look at our world through the light of God's truth and not through the tainted cultural lens of lies, which most people look through. Most people that you know, and even some in this room, look through a lens of cultural lies. Many of us have a tainted worldview. We look through a glass darkly Tainted by sin and depravity. Remember Israel? They wanted a king like all the other nations had a king. And in doing so, they rejected God as their king. They had the greatest king. They had the king of kings. And they said, nah, we want to be like everyone else. Is there anybody here? You want to be like the world? You want to be like everyone else? You want to have the toys that the world has? You want to have the fun, the things that the world has? Why is God not enough for us? You see, we don't need confirmation to this world becoming like it. We need transformation. Romans 12, 2, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can test and approve and know what God's will is. If our minds coming to God before Christ were like caterpillars, crawling in sin and selfishness and depravity. Now they should be akin to being like transformed butterflies, knowing God's will, having the mind of Christ. Philippians chapter 2. Does this describe you? Do you have a biblical worldview of all things? Ezekiel's first impressions. He beholds a grotesque mass of bones As the prophet is taken on a tour around this site, now he sees what God sees. Perhaps he didn't want to see it, but God wasn't asking if he wanted to see it. He is made aware, too, that what were once corpses had long ago since rotted or been eaten away into fleshless bones. Derek Thomas explains, the prophet is taken to a valley to observe a gruesome sight. The unburied skeletal remains of a fallen army. Warren Wiersbe states, it was a valley filled with many bleached bones scattered on the ground. The skeletons of corpses long ago decomposed and devoured by carrion eating birds and animals. These bones didn't even get a proper burial. They weren't half dead. They weren't in a coma. This wasn't a state of soul sleep. They didn't swoon. They didn't faint. They were completely and utterly dead. The situation looked hopeless, helpless and impossible. He saw a vision that apart from the presence of God would have shattered him into a million pieces. That's the situation that was before him. And here we can see man's hopeless state without God portrayed here. Joel Beakey wrote, this scene of death, demise and desolation highlights the devastating consequences of humanity's fall into sin. Satan slaughtered the human race, all mankind dead in sin and transgressions, utterly and miserably devoid of any spiritual life. You see, men apart from Christ walk around physically alive, but they're spiritually dead. Every time you step out into the world, you step out into a valley of dry bones, and you are always an Elijah and Ezekiel in the midst of them. You are always in Ezekiel in the midst of dry bones. Every time you step out into this world, realize this, you stand among a sin-saturated world, one ravaged in rebellion to God, one that violates God's commandments in bold defiance. John Gill wrote, man is internally and universally unclean. His heart is a sink of sin, desperately wicked. His mind and conscience are defiled. And there is no place clean. And this appears outwardly in his actions, in his life, in conversation, which is filthy also. For if the plowing of the wicked is sin, and the righteousness of men are filthy rags, how impure must the immoral actions of wicked men be? Man is so impure that nothing but the blood of Christ can purify his heart. and purge his conscience from dead works and make white his outward conversion garment, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Sin is as natural to him to commit as it is for man to drink water when he is thirsty, and he does so with equal gust, delight and pleasure as cold water is to a thirsty soul in great delight. Richard Baxter said filthy man drinks iniquity like water and blames God at every gulp he takes. Man sins and then blames God for the consequences that ensue because of sin. Can you see the picture here that Ezekiel is gazing upon? Because it's not a pretty one. You see, we must have the presence of God. and a biblical worldview of all things, but we cannot do anything apart from prayer and the word of God. Jesus said to abide in him and whatever we ask will be done for us. John 15, 7. We must be men and women of red hot zealous prayer. Which brings me to my second point, the pronouncement Ezekiel preaches. Look back with me again at verse four through seven. Then he said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them, oh, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones. Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live and I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I prophesied, there was a sound. And behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. You only have two weapons by which to minister, and one of them is prayer. Ezekiel speaks with God, and God speaks with Ezekiel. Prayer is a weapon that seems untapped in its full gamut. I agree with Hudson Taylor, God's missionary to China, when he said, the power of prayer has never been tried to its fullest capacity in any church. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine grace and power wrought in the places of weakness, failure, and disappointment, let the whole church answer God's standing challenge. Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33, verse three. Ian Bound said the preaching man must be the praying man because prayer makes the man. Prayer makes the preacher. The pipe must not only be golden, but open and flawless, that oil may have a full, unhindered, unwasted flow. God asked Ezekiel the probing question about the slightest possibility these bones live. He said, Son of man, can these bones live? And God never asked a question because he doesn't know the answer. So then why God? What does God ask questions? What did he say, Adam, where are you? Why does he ask Ezekiel, can these bones live? Well, he wants to focus our attention on something specific, something he wants us to realize. Secondly, he must first deal with his servant before he commissions him to minister. Amos 3 verse 7 says, for the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secrets to his servants, the prophets. Sinclair Ferguson said, For he is far more concerned with his servants than he is about their service. And Robert Murray McShane said, The preacher's sermon lasts for an hour, but his life preaches all week long. So how does Ezekiel respond? Does he answer the question? He does. He says, Oh, Lord, you know, he throws the ball back in God's court. How is your prayer life? Yes, we need good doctrine. But we must tarry before the throne of grace in prayer. Many people, many preachers spend no time in prayer like the persistent widow pleading before the Lord. Now, I'm going to offend some people, but that's OK. I'll take a man that is zealous in prayer, plugged into the power of God over a doctrinal quoting machine that doesn't spend an ounce of prayer in the presence of God. I met my best friend Evans not because he was rattling great doctrines off his tongue, but because never did I hear a man pray like him. And anybody who's coming this upcoming Saturday to the conference will hear what I mean when he preaches. Never have I heard someone pray like this man. Many here honor and quote certain preachers and scholars. We quote their doctrines and their sermons. But what about their prayer life? We don't talk about their prayer life. See, it's easy to parrot the material of others, but can you hunker down in prayer like some of these men and women of old? Yes, we all have our choice preachers, and it's OK to have a healthy admiration for such preachers. But are there really great men and great preachers or simply weak, pitiful men of a great and merciful and powerful God who chooses to use such as a potter molds the clay? Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned his brethren in England, you're going to become nothing more than a bunch of cold principles if the presence and the power of God is not in your life. Many people quote the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon. But where did he get his power from? His power to preach? Was it just because he was a clever guy? A high intellect? Because he had an extensive vocabulary, more so than other men and women of his day? Because that's not enough. You can be brilliant and powerless without prayer. When people would walk through the Metropolitan Tabernacle where Spurgeon preached, he would take them into the boiler room, a basement where hundreds of people were crying out to God, interceding for the church. Then Pastor Spurgeon would declare, here is the powerhouse of the church. Here it is. A Christian, a mother, a father, a child must be devoted to prayer. It's not for the preacher alone any more than giving CPR to a person that's unconscious. The air is not just for them alone, but we all need air, do we not? Where does the power to preach come from? It doesn't come from commentaries. It doesn't come from parroting words from other preachers. It comes from prayer. from dying yourself in the prayer closet, from being alone with the one who died for our sin and in the presence of the one that inspired the scriptures themselves. The psalmist prayed, open my eyes that I might behold the wondrous things out of your law. Oh, reformed believer, realize we're known for our conferences on doctrine and missions and preaching and other such things. But how many conferences do we have on prayer? Maybe we need to do that next year. How many of you show up to prayer meetings? How many of you have prayer at your home? How many of you even know how to pray? And the reason I ask that is because some people don't know how to pray. They know how to gossip. They know how to talk to other people in the prayer meeting, but they don't know how to pray. They don't know how to communicate with God. The disciples asked a question and it wasn't, Lord, teach us to preach. Lord, teach us to cast out demons, walk on water, to take a little boy's lunch and feed 5000 people. They asked, Lord, teach us to what? To pray. Why did they ask them to teach them to pray? I imagine that they saw Christ spending hours and hours on his knees before the Father in prayer and seconds performing miracles. They probably saw the connection. Hours doing this resulted in seconds doing that. Our Lord spent hours in prayer. Do you and I spend hours in prayer? Is your prayer life red hot? Is it a blaze for the Lord? Are you too busy like Martha in service that you don't have enough time to sit at the Savior's feet, desiring, pining, yearning to know Him more like Ezekiel? Are you willing to take time away from other things so you could be separated for God and for Him alone? It's easy to learn principles of ministry and doctrine, but nothing can replace red hot, infectious and a zealous prayer life. How much time do you lay before the Lord and petition the throne of grace, even pulling away from your studies at times to do so? When you look in the mirror, do you see someone that seeks the face of God or someone that neglects the prayer closet? Saints, Moses's face glowed after he spent time alone in God's presence. Is there any change in your countenance? Is there any change in you after you have spent time with God? Ezekiel was led of God and obeyed God because he stood in the presence of God. See, God hears his sheep and his sheep hear his voice, not Satan's goats. Many of you here are simply too busy to pray. The disciples were joyfully singing in jail, a joy that stemmed from prayer. Does this describe you? Can you sing when tribulation comes because you have been with Jesus? There was one thing that they recognized about the disciples. The enemy said that they could tell that these men had been with Jesus. Saints, can people tell that you have been with Jesus or just that you went in and out of a church building? You went to a Bible study. You peruse through your daily devotions, or can they tell that you've done those things And simultaneously, you have been with Jesus. I mentioned to you, you have two weapons by which to minister. One is prayer, but the second is the Word of God. These two weapons are two sides of the same divine coin. Jesus said in John 15, 7, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. It's all there, the presence, the relationship, prayer and God's word to the preaching of God's word is paramount. And what does why does Ezekiel preach? He's obedient. It's his offering of faith. Ezekiel proclaims, so I prophesied as I was commanded, not as I felt like it, not because I had nothing better to do. I did it because I was commanded to do it. Not because nobody else would do it. So then I reluctantly did it. I was commanded. My Lord commanded me to do so. And I am his instrument in his hand. So I'm going to do what he commands me to do. Spurgeon said a preaching. This is the great battering ram that shall dash down the bulwarks of iniquity. This is the great light that shall scatter the darkness. It shakes the gates of hell and breaks its iron bars. It's God's chariot of fire for bearing souls to heaven. and his two-edged sword to smite the host of hell. Preaching is man's privilege. It is your privilege and God's power. And what does he preach? Well, he calls the dry bones, dry bones. That's what he starts with, dry bones. He must call it like God has said it. God's message of life to dead bones is what He would preach. We cannot minimize man's depravity by not saying, these bones are dead. We can't minimize and say, these men are not dead because they are. Man is depraved, utterly depraved. And only a great work of God can bring man to life. He didn't make up his own message. He obediently preached what God commanded, a specific message to dead bones in the presence of God. We must always stay on message in the word of God and never be diverted away from, thus saith the Lord. We can still say, thus saith the Lord. Just make sure those words are coming from the word of God. Paul tells us, do not go beyond what is written, 1 Corinthians 4, 6. This sermon perhaps didn't even make sense to Ezekiel, but he wasn't trying to figure it all out, was he? He was just being obedient. Humanly speaking, does it even make sense that preaching can bring a spiritually dead soul to life? Does that even make sense? Before us this morning, has it ever made sense? Have you ever thought about this reality? But listen to what God says in first Corinthians 121 and the new King James, he says, for since in the wisdom of God, the world, through wisdom, did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message priest to save those who believe God chose something that the world considers utterly foolish to save those who would believe he chose the foolishness of preaching what some of you have done and what I'm doing right now. The world considers utterly foolish that I'm wasting my time that many of you waste your time when you speak the word of God to the lost. But yet this is what pleases God. Do you want to do what pleases God? Or do you want to stay away from what the world despises? We must do what pleases our Lord and God. Realize the impossibility of the salvation of a single soul. If I could take you on a journey around the world and you could see the grotesqueness of people worshiping false gods and all the sinful ways in which they do it, And your eyes take it all in, your ears take it all in, your senses soak it all up. You would utterly explode and say, how can anyone be saved? This is an impossibility before my sight. You would ask with the disciples, then who can be saved? And Jesus answered their question. He said, what is impossible with man is possible with God. We must preach God's word to dead lifeless people because that and that alone saves. However, in order to do this, we must actually get out there among the dead to bring the gospel to them. We have to actually rub shoulders with the unsaved and be out there. Jesus was called a friend of sinners. Why? Because he sat among them. He ate with them. He never compromised. Being with sinners doesn't mean you compromise. Doesn't mean you go to that movie that they might want to see that you shouldn't go to. Be among them, but don't sin along with them. We must be among the dead. How can they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful the feet of those who preach the good news. Romans chapter 10, verse 14 and 15. See, Ezekiel is instructed to prophesy over these bones so they might be resurrected to life. And he could see revival in a valley of bones. And realize you could slap some Bible verses together, illustrations, good quotes, and parrot the material of others and be very sincere in doing so. But if you don't have the power of God's Spirit breathe upon your word, you will be like a clanging cymbal and rattling bones. We must have the presence of God and proclaim the word of God by the power of God with a biblical worldview. And finally, that brings me to my last point. Point number three, the power God provides. Let's look. at verse 8 through 10. He says, And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had 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 breathe on these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them. and they lived and stood on their feet an exceedingly great army. Their vision started with the presence of God. It continued with Ezekiel's proclamation and resulted in the power of God's Spirit upon the slain. As developed here, the process by which God will fulfill his promise involves four discrete stages. One, he'll reconnect bones with the sinews. Two, he'll cover the bones with flesh. Three, he overlays the flesh with skin. And four, he infuses them with his breath. The sequence involved bones, sinews, flesh and skin reflects an understanding of anatomy realized by anyone who's ever witnessed a slaughter of an animal. It also reverses the decomposition process. God was reviving these bones, not simply for biological, chemical reconstitution of the body or even the restoration of physical life, but so his resurrected people will know that he is their Lord. That's why he brings us to life. He desires spiritual revival and relationship with himself in showing forth his great salvation. See, all heaven still rejoices over one sinner or over a multitude of sinners that repent. For God gets saved one more who was dead in sin and brought them to spiritual life. And many people look at that verse and they say, oh, they rejoice it because the sinner was saved. Listen, when a lifeguard dives in and save someone, Nobody says to the guy who is drowning, whoa, you certainly did a good job to save yourself. No, they applaud the lifeguard and we must applaud God when a sinner is safe. We don't applaud the sinner. We applaud the savior. You see, preachers can preach flawless sermons with their intellect, human ingenuity and cleverness. and simply be making the bones rattle and move all around them. Ezekiel preached with an unction, which is as Leonard Ravenhill wrote, God's knighthood for the soldier preacher who has wrestled with God in prayer and gained victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets, but in the prayer closet. It is won or lost even before the preacher ascends the pulpit. It's like dynamite. You see, Tanya's saxophone is a mere instrument. And apart from her, there would be no music. It needs her breath. It needs Tanya's breath to make the music. And without the spirit of God, there can be and will be no life. God's spirit must breathe life. You can't simply shout and wake up and scream at a skeleton and cause it to respond. Life must speak to life. It wasn't until Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. that this dead man of four days walked out of the tomb. Ray Comfort wrote, the words of Jesus cut through the icy grip of death like a white hot blade through soft powdered snow. The same word that brought life in the beginning breathed life into the decomposing corpse of Lazarus. And might I add, moved upon the preaching of Ezekiel by his power in the same way Ezekiel preached with unction. You see, we need Christians and preachers who are actually out among the dead. and reach them by the presence of God. Whether Sri preaching or witnessing one-on-one, I don't care what other men say about me, only that God's Spirit is working through me. And listen to me, hear me. This is all you should care about. I've had words of mockery and threatenings thrown at me and have been scorned by men. But in Acts chapter 7, Stephen had stones thrown at him, but he looked up to heaven and he saw Jesus not sitting at the right hand of God, but standing. at the right hand of God, Acts 7.56. And Christ still stands for His children when hellbound men hurl all sorts of insults and physical persecutions at them for His name's sake. And He does it today. Remember, though, there was one standing there like dead men's bones that was witnessing the stoning of Stephen, and his name was Saul. And God would turn this murderer into a missionary. God would use the preaching and persecution of Stephen to eventually breathe life into a spiritually dead corpse, Saul of Tarsus, and resurrect him to life as the Apostle Paul, who would be martyred himself for Christ. It takes the power of God. The means God uses to change a heart is a praying man or a praying woman, and the preaching of God's Word by the power of God's Spirit. And to preach without prayer is to have an arrow without a bow or a cannonball without a cannon from which to fire it. They must go together. We need the very spirit of God. And when Ezekiel preached, God infused the dead army with life and they stood to their feet and exceedingly great and revived and resurrected army. All the dead were brought to life. John chapter three and verse eight says the wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound. but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it, so is it with everyone who is born of the spirit. No man can contain the wind. Proverbs chapter 30, verse four asks, who has gathered the wind in his fists? As God controls the wind, so does he control his spirit and sends it to bring the dead to life. He sent this spirit upon many here, including myself. and brought us who were dead in our sins. He brought us to life. If the wind of God's Spirit doesn't come upon us, then we will be like the doubters that don't come to God in faith and are driven as a wave tossed by the wind. James 1.6 or as Ephesians 4.14 tells us, tossed around to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Either you will have the living wind of God that can raise the dead upon you or the false wind of this world that blew upon the dry bones but to no avail. We need the breath of God that breathed the word of God that spoke creation into existence that came upon the disciples at Pentecost and breathe over these bones to come upon us and upon the ministry that he's called us to do. Otherwise, we labor in vain and the Lord is not building that sermon, that ministry, that idea, that prayer or life apart from his spirit. You see, it's a greater miracle for God to raise the dead than even in creation. For in creation, ex nihilo, he made creation from nothing. But take a pile of dead, decrepit, sinful, rebellious men that have nothing to offer God and no way to save themselves. And God changes that heart and rips out a heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh and raises that life. That is a miracle. That is a miracle. Does God breathe his vibrant life upon all that you do? Do you walk in the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Do you have what preachers of all call the unction of the Holy Spirit? Though difficult to describe, many can discern when a preacher has it or is devoid of it. David wrote, let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Well, in closing, can you see the picture of depravity all around you? Because you're in God's presence and you have a biblical worldview. Are you prepared in your prayer life, in your study of God's word, to bring the gospel to the lost by actually being among the dead? Do you see God's power provided upon your labors? Have you ever seen the spiritually dead, broken, decrepit bones of the ungodly come to life in Christ and rejoice before you? Well, let me encourage you this morning. God would one day Ask his own son, the Lord Jesus, can these wicked people live? The true son of man would answer his father and say, Father, you alone know. And would say to each one here that has been born again, come forth from your spiritual death and I will cover you and clothe you with my righteousness and put my Holy Spirit within you and make you alive. I will give you everlasting life. and no man can take you out of my hand. The Lord will use you like an Ezekiel to stand among those you know who are spiritually dead and speak the word of God to them, whether a family, friend or foe. You must be in the presence of God and speak the word of God and experience the power of God upon that which you speak. Well, you might be sitting here and you've never repented of your sin. and realize you've broken every law of God, and He holds you accountable, and He'll bring swift and divine justice and send you to an eternal hell without any hope of escape, for that's where dead bones go that are not made alive. You are the dead bones, the lifeless, the hopeless apart from Christ. But the good news is, but just as these bones are once revived, so you too can be brought to life, If you come to the only one who could do so, the Lord Jesus Christ, you must repent of your sin and rebellion against God and trust in Christ alone. For today is a day of salvation. Repent and believe the gospel. Let's pray. Father, I thank you in Jesus name for your goodness and for your glory and for the word of God. And I pray that the word of God will pierce our hearts like an arrow pierces a target, Lord. Father, I pray that your Spirit would breathe upon us, Lord, and anyone here that doesn't know Christ, anyone here that is on their way to hell, when they breathe their last breath at this moment, may they finally humble themselves and throw down their pride, and may you open their heart, and may they come to Christ. And for your saints, may we leave this place, not just like in Ezekiel, but by the Lord Jesus and step out into this decrepit world of sin and unrighteousness and stand as God's man or woman or child in the face of death and say, yes, Lord, you alone know. If this soul can live, but I'm going to bring the word of God to them and you and you alone will do the work that we might be obedient to God and leave all the consequences to him. And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.