Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 18, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Can These Bones Live?

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March 18, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Can These Bones Live? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to be here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's an exciting day in the it's an exciting week in the Congdon family.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We uh have a new grandchild, Craig and Emily, who live uh just across town, has a church in Shawnee Heights called Grace Bible, teaches Care Parvel.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: They had a little girl, their first child, Genevieve.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: So those little kids, seven pounds, and they just kind of they're really cute.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was rough.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was uh it was a rough four hours for me, but got that baby out.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Really exciting.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you're visiting today or first time you're listening online, uh whatever, um, we're going through Ezekiel.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is uh the 11th of 12 messages from Ezekiel.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've been taking an Ezekiel challenge, means meaning we've been reading four chapters a week.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And in these 12 weeks, we will uh have finished all 48 chapters.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so it's just the most remarkable book, isn't it?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's just just really amazing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna finish strong because we've got two amazing chapters to go.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: The one today is perhaps the most famous chapter uh in Ezekiel.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's the chapter of the dry bones, you know.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: You remember that old spiritual that goes and the and the uh leg bone connected to the knee bone and the knee bone connected to the thigh bone and the thigh bone connected to the hip bone and yeah, hear the word of the Lord, baby.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, dim bones, dim bones, dim dry bones.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful song.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the passage.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you have a Bible, open it to the 37th chapter of Ezekiel.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel chapter 37.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: My title this morning is Can These Bones Live?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's a good day to preach this chapter.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most famous archaeological discoveries of dry bones was made 30 years ago today, or maybe it was 29 years ago today, in the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the greatest pyramid down there in the set of three at Giza in Egypt, they discovered uh on this day, March the 18th, uh the bones of Pharaoh in there.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a good day to talk about bones.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, those bones, 4,400 years old, predated by 2,000 years, the bones that Ezekiel's gonna see in this chapter.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So uh open your Bible, Ezekiel 37.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you that this uh passage, first 14 verses, this famous, one of the most amazing passages, most dramatic passages in all of the whole Bible, first 14 verses, falls into two parts.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: The first 10 verses are three very vivid scenes that Ezekiel sees in this vision.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's verses 1 through 10.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: In these scenes, God is making a promise to Israel, who are the dry bones, represent the dry bones.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so in verses 11 through 14, just so they and we won't misinterpret what's going on, we have the interpretation of this passage.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So let's take a look, starting at verses 1, 2, and 3, the Valley of Dry Bones.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: The hand of the Lord was on me.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this says stated, this is the way he begins a couple times, about three, four times in this book, and it means the power, God's almighty power, that's representing his hand, was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: This happens in the first chapter or second chapter, and it um God just grabs Ezekiel, apparently, and in this vision, brings him out, and he plops him down.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: It says, set me, but it's more than set, it's like set down, plop, bang, in the midst of a valley.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the valley is this horrible, garish, weird, uh bizarre place that's just full of bones, bleaching in the sun, bones.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry, which means, of course, that they weren't fresh.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't mean to be gross, but means they'd they're old.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're like CSI bones, you know, where they find, you know, the bones and then say, well, these are 70, it's a body 70 years old.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, and um then he led me back and forth, he says, among them.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and and is that gross or what?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So God's gonna, God's gonna give him a belly full of death.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, let me just lead you around this open graveyard.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna rub his face in death, and that's important, because I'm gonna try to rub your face in death as well.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I saw a great many bones, bones that were very dry.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: He asked me, weird question, Son of Man, can these bones live?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Sovereign Lord, you alone know, which is a good answer.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if God asks you that, can these bones live?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: You'd look at him like, uh you're asking me.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that this is one of those times in the Bible, there's half a dozen of them, where God asks a surprising question.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like uh Adam and Eve, they've sinned, they're in the garden, and God comes down and he's running, he says, Where are you?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: As if he doesn't know.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how about Jesus by the Sea of Galilee?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, after the resurrection, early morning, and they've been fishing all night, they've caught nothing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Voice comes from Jesus.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey, you guys caught anything?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you hate it when you're fishing, by the way, and you haven't caught anything?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody says, Have you caught anything?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you're going, shut up.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, but God does this.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's like half a dozen times where he asks this rhetorical question, why?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that you'll face the situation that you're in.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you realize what has to be done.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So here he's going, you know what?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, Ezekiel feels like he's in the Chicago Museum or something.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's looking bones.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: But we need him to understand something.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: We need him to understand that there's a tragedy here that these were people who are now dead, like in Hamlet.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Alas, poor Yorick.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they used to be alive and so forth, but they're now dead and they need help.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can they live?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Ezekiel says no.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is so this is the you know really famous part of the chapter because you have this dry bones, those of you that are more familiar with, you know, coming Disney generation, think of maybe the Lion King.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And remember the elephant graveyard, elephant bones?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: You don't.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So by the way, even in Israel today, dry bones is the name of a very popular cartoon in the papers and magazines.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Dry bones, it's it's it's dry humor, basically.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Here was a recent one.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Jewish state is maligned and defamed, not because of what it does, but because of what it is.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Jewish state.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So um, anyway, so dry bones is famous all over the world.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, in fact, this is just a really recent story.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: The headline read, CSI Meets History, piecing together the long-lost bones of Richard III.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, it's been a half a dozen years ago, but they were tearing up an asphalt pavement over in Leicester, Britain, and they found that it was a royal graveyard, and they opened this special grave up.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh archaeologists, whatever name is, top archaeologists from Britain and the CSI type people, and they do the study and they they find out with 99.85% certainty that these are the bones of none other than Richard the Lionheart, who died over 500 years ago, 1485.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they do a study, they find out he died in, you know, they know he died in battle, but they find where this where the sword, you know, went into his head and and where the Halberk, you know, hit him on the shoulder.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the axe and the spear and so forth.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And really interesting.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So this is just three years ago, they found all this stuff out.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: So this is, now there's something a little different, by the way, about this skeleton than the one.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sorry, I know this is kind of gross.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: A little girl came up to me after first service and goes, I didn't like all those bones.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I so I'm sorry.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: But um, in the graveyard that Ezekiel's in, the bones are not together.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's not like skeletons.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're more like uh Auschwitz.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: When I went to Auschwitz, one of the horrible things about going to these to these Jewish extermination camps is, of course, that the Nazis swept these bones out of the gas ovens and then just pile them up, and so they're just they're not connected at all.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it is a horrible thing to see when you go there.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so, so sobering.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this was a little more what it was like in the valley.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: There were just bones scattered around, and God says, God says, can these bones live?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the point is, wouldn't it be nice if they could?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be nice if these bones could live again?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can they?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel, oh Lord God.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he correctly uses, oh sovereign, covenant-keeping Lord, the personal God of his people.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, only you know.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um, then what we have is we have a little excursus, a little paragraph where God says, Well, you're throwing the ball back in my court, but I'm gonna toss it back in your lap.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask you to get involved in making them live.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so the Lord says in verses four through six, prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath, uh, ruach, spirit, to enter into you, and you shall live.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, so it's now physical body.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And put breath in you, finally, Nishama.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so which reminds you of this is how we were created.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: It says, God formed man, Adam, Adam, out of the dust of the ground, so it's physical, physical, but he's lifeless out of the dust of the ground.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then, part two, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being, a living soul.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and actually did the same thing for animals, just not personally.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that you have living beings who consist of physical, in a sense, shells and um and and and then life, the spirit inside him.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I was just at that moment thinking of a dumb joke that somebody told at a graveside, you know, saying that such and such is a real character.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: The shell is down here, but the nut has gone on.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so, anyway, so there's sort of sorry, my mind does strange things on Sundays.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so that's the that's the picture here.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: God says, God says, I am going to restore Israel.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to do something right now.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And now he does it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the next stage in the action is that, yeah, after this valley of dry bones, all of a sudden now these bones begin to come together.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, he says, I prophesied as I was commanded.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was prophesying, even as he starts to prophesy and do and say what God told him to say in verse 4 through 6, there was a noise, a rattling sound.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: How weird is this?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the bones come together bone to bone.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking, this is like weird zombie stuff.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, lifeless zombie skeleton type things.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the bones come together.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, well, we haven't gotten to the interpretation yet, but we're going to interpret, this is going to be interpreted in verse in a few verses, as the coming together of the nation of Israel, the regathering to the land.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And now we come to the final two verses.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: The wind now on the third scene enlivens the skeleton.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's called wind, in the way that Jesus enlivened Lazarus.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, or wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, This is what the sovereign Lord says.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Quote, Come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I prophesy as he commanded me, and he hears the wind coming, and breath enters them.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And they come to life, and they stood up on their feet.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the story.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the three scenes, but now, fortunately, we have the interpretation.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: First, verse 11 interprets the valley of dry bones.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: They say, Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone, we are cut off.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is exactly where Israel is.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just to backtrack a little bit, this prophecy happens at 590 BC.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: All you had left in Israel was the southern two, the southern two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, huddled around Jerusalem, and they're full of idolatry.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So God gets upset, and God brings Babylon against them.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in three separate collapses, 605, 598, 587, the name the city of Jerusalem falls.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: In 605, Daniel is taken away.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: They take all the crime de la cream.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: In 598, they take away Ezekiel, sort of the second tier, and thousands of other Israelites.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: They take them back to Babylon.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was Babylon's idea, is you can stop people from belling against you if you take all their people and just leave them the worst with the worst dregs.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: So now Ezekiel and the others, they're by the canal Kibar in a settlement, a Jewish settlement just outside in a suburb of the city of Babylon.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that's when, and that's when these prophecies of Ezekiel are coming.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's when Ezekiel's talking to them.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: This preceding the final total collapse, burning down of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But Ezekiel's predicting it.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel predicted, he said, God said, Ezekiel, I want you to tell them that in a couple of years a messenger's gonna come from Jerusalem and say, the city's been burned.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel said it, everybody laughed.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: They said, You're crazy.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: You are such a pagan.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: God would never do that to Jerusalem.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: God would never allow that to his holy temple and to his city.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, we're going to be going back there one of these days.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And God says to Ezekiel, No, you're not.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're so full of idolatry.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: He grabs Ezekiel in a vision of the night, you remember, chapters 8 through 11.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: He takes him back and he plants them in the temple and he gets to watch as the leaders back in Jerusalem are worshiping idols, the sex goddess of Astarte and the sun god and the others, right there in the temple.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: They've set them up.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just horrible.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And God says, Watch.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And his glory leaves the temple and he says, I'm gonna destroy this place.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody believed Ezekiel until now.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel 37, the messenger has just come.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: He said, The walls have fallen, and the Israelites, the Jewish people in Babylon, are absolutely devastated.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're depressed.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: They say, Our God is not strong enough.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have no future, our life is over, and they're all they're hopeless.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And God says, Let me tell you a story.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a vision.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: You are now a valley of dry bones.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have any hope.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: You are dead.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I have a plan for you.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: They say, Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone, and we are cut off.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then he interprets the bones coming together.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm gonna bring Israel, I'm gonna bring you back into the land.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tell them I'm gonna bring them back into the land.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Tell them I'm gonna bring these bones together into skeletons, into bodies.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, verses 12 and 13, I quote, Prophesy and say to them, Thus saith the Lord God, behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you back into the land of Israel, and you will know that I am the Lord.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: When I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna bring you back into the land.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: But it didn't happen in their lifetime.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't happen in Ezekiel's lifetime, didn't happen in 590, 580, 570, 560, 550, 540 BC.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: But then came Cyrus of Persia and he conquered Babylon, and Cyrus had a totally different foreign policy.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: His policy was it's better if they like you.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so he said, I'll send all of you back.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody who wants to go back to Jerusalem can go, and thousands of Israelites under Ezra and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel, a Sir Rubber Ball, bounced their way back to Jerusalem, you know, in 500 and 450 BC.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it was just a partial return.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament constantly predicts that most of Israel will go back to the land.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord will gather them all back to the land.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you had a partial fulfillment then, and you know what's been happening ever since, especially in the last hundred years.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know what happened, the 1880s, 1900, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, and then Israel is declared a country.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then the ships start returning, carrying Jewish people back to the land.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: The fulfillment that God will bring Israel back into the land, but the problem is still no breath in them.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's still no spiritual life in them.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: When you go to Israel today with me on a tour, if you do, as you know, it's just a wonderful place to visit.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most western country outside of America that you've ever seen.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's terrific, but it's a godless country.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them are utterly secular.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're Buddhist or they're atheist or something like that.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's no breath in them, no spiritual life.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to have another prophecy.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: In verses 9 and 10, and so he prophesies again, the wind will come.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And now in verse 14, it's interpreted, that wind is actually my Holy Spirit.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I will put my spirit within you, Israel, and you will live, and I will place you in your own land, and then you will know that I am the Lord, I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there are promises.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Last week, chapter 36, throughout the Old Testament, in Zechariah, when Jesus appears, then Israel will see him and they will mourn to see the Savior that they pierced, that they killed, and there will be a national rest revival.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: God will blow his spirit into the nation of Israel.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Romans 11, 33 through 36.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, that's the passage we're looking at.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is that some of you care a lot about the end times and you care a lot about what's going to happen to Israel, like me.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: I like that stuff.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, uh, some of you don't.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And plus, you know what?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible's far more than an academic book.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to ask ourselves, is this does this passage operate at another deeper level?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer is, of course it does.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's quoted in the New Testament.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's clear this passage is telling something to you and to me when we feel like we're dead, dry bones in our marriage, in our financial life, in our social life, in our sexual life, in our spiritual life.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: This passage is the passage you and I need.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a promise not just to Israel, it's a promise to dry bones Christians.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Their lives, our lives, our marriages, our homes, and our churches, sometimes dead.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: For this passage repeatedly says, My people, you are my people.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is speaking to believers.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in Scenes 1 through 3, we're reminded that at times parts of our lives are dry bones.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: We have no hope.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then what happens is the word of God comes.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the word of God tells us that we desperately need life.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: But we're still not alive.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Our marriages are still dead, or our finances are still dead, or our relationships are still dead, or the friendship is still dead, or the church is still there, the home is still dead.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the word of God is come and we're open to that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: We realize that we're dead and we need the word, but we need the Spirit of God to come make us alive.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we have verses uh nine and ten.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the interpretation is that you and I, this passage is telling us bluntly, you're dead.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You hear God speak, and you can have a revival and be alive again because I am the resurrection and the life, the Lord Jesus says when he helped Lazarus out of the tomb.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: He who believes in me will live even though he dies in the future.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you die, you will live because of the resurrection.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And even today, in the present, whoever lives and believes in me will never, never die.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you believe this?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got three lessons for us, okay, that come out of this passage that you need and that I need.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the first is that you need to own, you need to own your dry bone.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you need to look in the mirror and see a skeleton.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: You need to see bones that need help.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: You need to call out to God and say, Lord, my whatever it is is dead.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, my spiritual life is dead, Lord, my marriage is dead, Lord, Lord, my finances are dead, Lord, my church is dead, Lord, my home is dead.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: You need to you need to be honest with God.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know that's really blunt.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's as blunt as seeing dead bones.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it reminds me a little bit of the story of the of the woman, farmer's wife, who who decided to take a European vacation.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Her husband had no interest in it, stayed home to take care of the farm, and her vacation, you know, she's going to London, then she's gonna go to Paris, then she's gonna go to Rome, and then she's gonna go to Vienna and so forth.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when she got to Rome, she called back, she called home, she called her husband.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, How are things going?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Things are things are going well, honey.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but I do need to tell you, your your your cat Lucy has died.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And she bawled her eyes out of the phone.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: She just wept and wept and all of a sudden she stopped and angry.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: She says, You insensitive brute of a man, I don't know why I ever married you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: You just have absolutely no heart.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Whoa, whoa.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: What should I have done?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she said, you could have been more sensitive about it.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I said, How?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, maybe you know, when I call you from London here for the first time, you could have said, Well, honey, your cat Lucy's up on the rough.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then, and then, and then when I called you, when I called from Paris, you could have said, Honey, honey, Lucy fell off the roof.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got to Rome and called you, you could have said, honey, Lucy, your cat is not doing very well at all.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got to Vienna, you could have broken the news.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: You could have finally, you could have said, Honey, I'm sorry to tell this, but Lucy's died.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, oh, okay, okay, he says, I I got it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: She says, by the way, how's mother?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: He says, uh, um, honey, honey, she's up on the roof.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, so so you come to chapter 37 of Ezekiel, and God does not care a whit about being sensitive.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's absolutely no sensitivity in God.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: He wants, he takes you to the valley of dry bones and he rubs your face into it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he does.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: God wants you, he wants you to get a belly full of the death that's in your life somewhere, in your marriage, in your finances, in your lusts, you know, in your social life, in your friendship.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's someplace in your life where you're dead.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you've never met Jesus Christ and know him as your personal savior, then frankly, as Ephesians says, you you're dead in your trespasses and sins.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: But even if you're a believer, 1 Timothy talks about, talks about a widow in the church who's just occupied with pleasure, says, Yeah, she's alive spiritually, but she's dead even while she lives.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's a kind of a death that can invade your life, and God wants you to rub your face in it.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: He wants you, I mean, he wants, he wants you to know about it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it can be quite it can be quite an experience.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: It can be even better perhaps than the uh the most popular tour we're told in Tinsel Town these days in Hollywood.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know about it, for only$30.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can go on what used to be called the grave line grave line tours.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a uh actually actually it was a Kansan uh from uh Prairie Village who went out about 30 years ago and started grave lurs, this garish, this sort of where they would take you by, you know, places where people committed suicide, famous Hollywood people who had died, and so forth.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and then he sold it to another guy from Kansas, Midwest, who moved out there, and now it's called the Dearly Departed Tragical History Tour.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not magical history, a tragical history tour.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of using a hearse like the like the first guy did, Greg did, uh, Scott, uh, this new guy uses a van.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you you pay your$30, you get in the van, and he takes you.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the first stop is the Chalet where John Belushi had his drug overdose, and then they take you to the to the cemetery where Marilyn Manson, you know, I mean, but not Marilyn Manson, where Marilyn Monroe is buried, because the next place is you stop at the house where Marilyn Manson killed Sharon Tate, and then you go see Mike, Michael and and Whitney, and you know, you see the places where all of these people, these Faint Janus Joplin, where they're all buried.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they even they even take you to the to the house where you know they he intones solemnly that TV Superman George Reeves uh went home and put a speeding bullet in his head, and and you're supposed to laugh at that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, and let me any of you from Kansas, we're from Kansas, he says.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so they take you to where Annie M, you know, who was in Wizard of Oz, you know, um, went home from church on Palm Sunday morning, wrote down, Lord, you know, might take my soul to keep and put a bag over her head, and he says she was our first bag lady.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And anyways, just really garish type, horrible stuff.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I've just offended all of the rest of you.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, here's the interesting thing is is God really does not care about your feelings so much as he cares about shocking you into reality.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Once a guy came into my office some years ago, and and he did not come to get help.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm I'm gay, and and he said, and my pastor just want to know, my pastor says this is absolutely fine, and I'm living out what I want to.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I confess that I'm really scared of getting AIDS, but he says, I've heard, you know, a Bible church and you talk about the Bible, so what would you say?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I said, So you're telling me you really want to know, you know what the Bible says.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm telling you, I'm gonna tell you what the Bible says, I'm not gonna tell you what, you know, yeah, I want to know.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I told him, you know, I quoted the verses and I said, It's it's sin, it's absolute sin, and it'll lead to death, and it's wrong, and it's just flat out wrong, and I don't even want to hear you argue with me.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just the way it is.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you know.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we talked for a while longer, and he was mad at me, and he left, and he came back the next called, he came back the next week.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You know, you're the first person that ever spoke the truth to me.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's just like an open door.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't tell you this, but I really would like to quit.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to have God in my life.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he did, and that was a turning point in his life because he needed someone who would who would rub his belly in death and rub his face right in that, and he would look at it, and he would say, you know what?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm dead.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm dead.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely need help.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you need to come to grips.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's the turning point.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Many of you do counseling like I do, and you know the turning point in many people's lives is when they say, I'm dead and I need help, my marriage is dead, and it needs help, my finances are dead, my friendships are dead, they need help.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: The second uh application from here, from that middle section, is you need to listen to God's word, for that's the second thing.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You need to say, Lord, speak to me.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have the word of God in here.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: How are they gonna hear without a preacher?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: How are they gonna hear without someone who tells them?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can tell them, you can give people God's word as I did.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that, and that's what people need.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: If people have said, My marriage is dead, then give them the word of God.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Give them comfort, show them the way out.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: You cry out to God, say, Lord, my whatever it is is dead.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: My spiritual life is dead.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, speak to me.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're big on that here.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: We hound you on that.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't apologize.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not because we're too big a Bible church, and it's not because we believe a devotion a day keeps the devil away that we're always talking about going to Bible studies and reading the Bible and so forth.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's because we really do believe that's how God actually speaks to us.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: He speaks to us in his word.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's why he gave it the voice of God.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: People say, I want to hear God speak to me audibly.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: I say, well, then read the Bible out loud.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because that's how God talks to us.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: So say, Lord, speak to me, Lord, speak to me.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why the writer of Hebrews is referring to that when he quotes a verse and says, Today, if you hear his voice, and he's speaking about hearing his voice out of the word, don't harden your hearts.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, people, you can know the word of God, you can memorize verses, whole passages of the book of the Bible, and still be just a skeleton, still be dead without any breath of life.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are Jewish people I know who know so much of the Bible by heart.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're spiritually, spiritually dead.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why you go to that third stage, that final stage, you pray for a new life.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, breathe on me, please, Lord.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I need new life.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because as the Calv, as John Calvin once said, it's the word plus the spirit, the word plus the spirit.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Our power that can never be defeated, are the power that absolutely changes, changes lives.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: You see yourself as dead, call out for the word of God, and then the spirit comes in and breathes on you.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yesterday was St.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Patrick's Day, St.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Patrick's Day.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's the day of the shamrock and parades and green and all that stuff.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, a lot of people don't know the backstory, the rest of the story.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Patrick was a was a kid, you know, who grew up about 400 AD in Britain, right?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then he was kidnapped by Irish pirates when he was 16 years old, taken to Ireland, and he was sold to a pagan, uncivilized tribe where they made a turn of a slave.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: For six years, for six years, Patrick is a slave in that tribe, and it changed his life for good because all of a sudden he was no longer sufficient.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: He was no longer strong and vibrant, he was helpless, and he thought of the faith of his parents, the Christian faith of his parents, and he cried out to God and he became a Christian all alone, there in that tribe in Ireland.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And one day at age 22, he escaped and he made his way back to Britain.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And now, with changed heart, he became a pastor.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Became a pastor, was a successful pastor for years, for decades, but he never could get Ireland out of his heart and eventually stopped looking at that island as sort of an evil place, a place of his captivity, and he began looking at it in the Ezekiel 37 way as sort of this helpless valley of dry bones.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And at age 48, Patrick went back to Ireland, went back as a missionary, and because he knew their language, they listened to him.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: They listened to him and saw themselves as they really were, spiritually dead.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: They cried out, they listened to the word of God from Patrick's mouth, and the breath of God came upon them.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Ireland at that point became a Christian nation.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's the backstory.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that happens to whole nations, sometimes it happens to whole tribes.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Most often it just happens to individuals.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yesterday at our men's breakfast, uh, Abe Steinbach shared his story.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know Abe, wonderful guy.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's been in our church for about 10 years, he and Megan.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Abe uh told the story of growing up in a really good home.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Not a spiritual home at all, up north of town, uh Holton area.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And growing up in a home where where, you know, his dad was one of those men, man's man type guys.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's in a wheelchair all of Abe's life, because when Abe was seven months old, he'd gotten in an accident.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So he's in a wheelchair, but he's a strong man and he's a profane man, you know, uh, verbally, and yet he was he was Abe's hero.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's the kind of guy he wanted to become like.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not religious, not a spiritual home at all.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And Abe's growing up and and he's going to Jeff West and going to schools up north and so forth.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and and dad is so proud of his son because he's got this son who's growing up strong and tall and straight and a terrific baseball player.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and and then his son's in Emporia State and he meets a girl.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: He meets this wonderful girl, a girl who talks to him about her savior, and it deeply, deeply touches Abe.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she keeps talking to him about her savior, and he sees something in her that he doesn't have.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he cries out to God, hearing that word of truth, seeing himself as dead spiritually, cries out to God.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: The breath of God comes upon him, and Abe becomes a believer, he becomes a Christian, then he gets engaged to Megan and he marries Megan.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: They have some difficulties in marriage, in child rearing, and so forth.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: They eventually adopt a couple of children and so forth.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And his dad is watching this the whole time.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: His dad, his his hard-bitten, this hard-bitten, hard-hearted, uh, profane man watching his son, and finally at age 55, in the early part of the year, his father melts.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: His father realizes, sees himself no longer as a capable, strong man, but as dry bones, as a valley of dry bones.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: He cries out to God.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: The breath of God comes into him.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And Abe's father becomes a Christian.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And a few months later succumbs, succumbs to the diseases that had caused him to, in recent years, have to get a leg amputated and other things, and he dies.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't really die, does he?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because we know we know Jesus' promise of the resurrection, and that he who lives and believes in me will never, never die.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And God, you see, doesn't allow him to die, but simply calls him home.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what God does.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: God loves, God, the God of life, loves to take dead bones and breathe into them the breath of life.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what God wants to do for you.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: You pray, Lord, breathe on me because it's the Spirit that gives life.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what your life is like, but I'm guessing that for many of you, there is a dead spot in there somewhere.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's a dry bone in there somewhere.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a part of your life that is that it that maybe you've given up on.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you that you it it cannot be worse than these long-dead dry bones in that valley.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: You simply need to look at that as if you're looking in a mirror and confess to God, Lord, Lord, my whatever it is is dead.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Hear the word of the Lord.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Call out to God, Lord, breathe on me.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've asked Jeremiah to join me in doing a song here that I'll ask you to participate in at the end.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do the reading, he'll do the singing.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: But this is a song that is a prayer, and I we're doing this song not as a performance, but as a prayer so that you will pray these words.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: You'll look at your own death, you'll hear the word, and you'll pray these words.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, breathe on me.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe on me, breath of God, breathe on me, breathe on me, breath of God, breathe on me, I come alive, I'm alive when you breathe on me.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I come alive, I'm alive when you breathe on me.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: When you awake my soul.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then he said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones, I will make breath enter you, and you will become alive.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, Come from the four winds of breath and breathe.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe on me, breath of God, breathe on me, breathe on me, breath of God, breathe on me, I come alive, I'm alive when you breathe on me.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I come alive, I'm alive when you breathe on me.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Stick it with me, church.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hoy, hoy, poak my stone, got a knee bones, from death to the life for you at a bone Hummick mask, let's tell it, take it out.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hoy, hoy, who make my stone, got a wreck these bones, from death to the life, for you at home, hook my so eight, hoy, who make my soul, got a resurrect these bones, from death to life, for you, my soul.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Move us from death to life by the power of your Holy Spirit.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: For Jesus' sake and for the sake of those who have to live with us, we pray in Jesus' name.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for coming.