Episode Transcript
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O, Lord, we thank you
for the mercy and pity that you show
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on us. We thank you that
as we cry out to you, as
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so many have UM, we receive
answer UM, that you come to us
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in our distress, and you rescue
us and bring us healing. This is
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not always um in the timing that
we think is best. But Lord,
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what do we know? You are
the all wise God. You are You
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see the beginning and the end.
Um. You ordain all the ends and
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the means. Help us to be
your servants, not try to be your
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rulers. Help us to look to
you in every moment and wait and anticipate
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that which you have promised to do. Give us this spirit even now,
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this this holy anticipation at the grace, the powerful grace of your word.
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Okay, bless us as we hear
it. We pray this in Jesus name.
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I'm in. Let's turn to Ezekiel
chapter seven. Ian may remain standing
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if you're able Ezekiel seven one through
fourteen. Mm hmmmm. Ezekiel chapter seven.
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The hand of the Lord was upon
me, and he brought me out
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in the spirit of the Lord and
set me down in the middle of the
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valley. It was full of bones. And he led me around among them,
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and behold there were very many on
the surface of the valley. And
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behold they were very dry. And
he said to me, son of man,
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can these bones live? And I
answered, a, Lord God,
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you know. Then he said to
me, prophesy over these bones, and
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say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
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Thus says the Lord God to the
bone, to these bones. Behold,
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I will cause breath to enter,
and you shall live. And I will
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lay sin us upon you, and
I will cause flesh to come upon you,
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and I will cover you with skin
and put breath in you, and
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you shall live, and you shall
know that I am the Lord. So
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I prophesied as I was commanded.
And as I prophesied, there was a
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sound, and behold a rattling,
and the bones came together, bone to
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its bone. And I looked and
behold there sinews on them, and flesh
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had come upon them, and skin
had covered them. But there was no
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breath in them. Then he said
to me, prophesy to the breath.
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Prophesy, son of man, and
say to the breath, thus says the
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Lord God, come from the four
winds, O breath, And breathe on
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these slain that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me,
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and the breath came into them,
and they lived and stood on their feet
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and exceedingly great army. Then he
said to me, son of Man,
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these bones are the whole house of
Israel. Behold, they say, our
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bones are dried up, and our
hope is lost. We are indeed cut
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off. Therefore prophesy and say to
them, thus says the Lord God.
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Behold, I will open your graves
and raise you from your graves, O,
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my people, and I will bring
you into the land of Israel.
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And you shall know that I am
the Lord. When I open your graves
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and raise you from your graves,
O, my people, and I will
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put my spirit within you, and
you shall live, and I will place
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you in your land. Then you
shall know that I am the Lord.
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I have spoken, and I will
do it, declares the Lord may be
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seated. I'd like to begin considering
this passage um In in three sections.
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First a dark place, a dark
place than a probing question, and then
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a powerful word. It is a
dark place that Ezekiel is brought to in
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the spirit of the Lord. He's
brought not to a high place, but
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a low place. I'm dark.
I don't mean this is early in the
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sense of of light, but um
in the sense of depressing in a way.
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Um, it is a depressed place, a low place, a valley,
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and it's full of bones, full
of bones and bones a lot of
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times. If a valley was full
of bones, if you read about that
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in the newspaper, you would expect
that they'd be talking about dinosaurs or something
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like that. Right buried bones,
uh, discovered bones. Um. Imagine
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a valley full of bones where the
bones are all sitting right on top.
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Imagine that they were not just random
bones that you couldn't identify, but they
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were very clearly human bones everywhere you
looked. It would be maybe one of
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the most disturbing things you'd ever see. Not buried and we are told,
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and very dry. I don't know
much about this, but from a little
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bit of looking up I did.
It takes a while for bones to dry.
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It's not something that just happens right
away. Perhaps you know this,
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uh, leaving a carcass out or
something like that, or you throw it
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away in the trash and you open
up your trash a few days later and
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it's basically that's still the same thing
right before the garbage service comes and picks
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it up. It takes time for
bones to dry out, um if they're
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left exposed. There's different ways that
can happen if they're left exposed. A
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lot of times animals start right,
they pull off the various pieces of flesh
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and sinew, and then eventually,
you know, microbes and tiny creatures work
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their way into the um blood vessel
cavities and things like that and clean it
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all out. But it takes it
takes time. UM. One set of
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instructions I read, a man who
sort of does this for a living,
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collects bones and then displays them and
maybe it's a museum work or something like
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that. UM. As I understood
what it was reading, he buries them
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into the ground um um to speed
up the process and it takes like a
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year or something. It's a while. So we're in a place that's not
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just recently dead or on its way
to death. This is a place that
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has been in uh, this state
of death for a long time, a
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long time. The bones aren't just
they're they're dry, and even very dry.
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This describes so much the spiritual condition
of Israel, as as we read
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later in the chapter, we read
of the people crying out and saying,
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our bones this is verse eleven,
are not verse yes, verse eleven.
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Behold they say, our bones are
dried up, our hope is lost.
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We are indeed cut off. God
is giving this picture to us through his
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equal of their spiritual state. And
it's honestly the spiritual state of all who
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are cut off from the Lord,
all who are caught in their sin and
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put to death by it. Sometimes
we can hide these things, um,
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we can hide our spiritual state,
but it can come out, like we
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hear in their words here, voices
of desperation and sadness, and anxiety,
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in rebellion and anger in various ways. The the death that is sometimes covered
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and on the inside comes out.
But here, for the sake of clarity,
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and for the sake of understanding exactly
what the condition is and what God
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is going to do, he uses
this picture of these bones, many bones
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on the surface of the valley,
And behold, they were very dry from
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this dark and low place. Then
and God bring her brings Ezekiel there.
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And then he asks this probing question
verse three. And he said to me,
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son of man, Can these bones
live? Can these bones live?
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It's interesting the way God asks questions. The question made me think a lot
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about Jesus throughout the Gospels, the
questions that he asks that are often confusing,
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um, difficult to figure out exactly
what he's getting at um, often
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very probing. Um. Jesus has
a way, the Lord has a way
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of of turning over cards on a
table. You're like in a magic trick,
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and that he's like, and it's
that one right, and yeah,
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that's my card right. It's he
has this way of of revealing things to
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us, and he asked this question, can these bones live? I want
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to pause here, and I am
pausing here to meditate on this for a
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moment because I think it's a worthy
question to apply to a lot of things
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in our lives. Um. There
are things in our lives that we have
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given up on the long dried out
left, long back and a long ago,
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things that maybe, um, the
source of much trouble and sorrow,
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and we think, you know,
there's no rescue from this, there's no
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hope in it. Um. Well, maybe look at ourselves, um,
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our need for forgiveness. Perhaps we
look at other people and the salvation that
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they need. Um. We look
at situations and we wonder what can be
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done, and then sometimes, if
you're like me, you just kind of
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stop wondering and there can be some
good in that. But sometimes God calls
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us to press a little more into
places were uncomfortable and to ask hard questions.
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I think one of the things that
God is getting at here and asking
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this question is one of the things
he's doing, is he's He's kind of
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demanding that Ezekiel and us with Ezekiel
think about it. Not just go a
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bunch of bones, but think about
it. Can these bones live? If
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you say yes? Why if you
say no? Why it's worth asking those
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questions. Ezekiel has a good answer, of course, Oh Lord God,
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you know, I have a hard
time not reading it as a kind of
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excuse answer, honestly. Um,
But maybe it's not that as well.
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I'm not exactly sure what sort of
tone of voice to to hear in my
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head when ek Ezekiel says it.
Is it the voice of I don't know
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what to say, I don't know
how to answer this question, So I'm
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just sort of bounce past this back
to you. Um or is it a
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question or is it an answer of
faith? I'm saying this is Many commentators
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take it this way, say Ezekiel
says this as a sense of in the
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sense of I don't know it's a
yes, and to know there isn't a
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clear answer to this, but my
faith is in you, and I know
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that what you say and what you
know is true. It's a good response.
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It's a good response. It doesn't
invalidate the importance of the question.
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Though. Remember the question is not
just when I'm proposing it's one, God
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asks Ezekiel. It's a good question. Even if we can't necessarily answer or
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it exactly with all the certainty we
might hope for. It's still a good
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question because it's forcing him to think
about the Lord in the context of the
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situation. That's very good. And
so I'm inclined to think his answer is
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a good one. Oh Lord,
God, you know, after this probing
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question, we come then to the
powerful word. He says to Ezekiel,
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prophesy over these bones, Say to
them, oh, dry bones, hear
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the word of the Lord. There
are some really um, there's a lot
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of times in scripture where the Lord
speaks to things that we don't normally speak
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to this morning. In our Sunday
school time, we consider the question,
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do we have legitimate reason to believe
that those who have departed um and are
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in heaven can hear us um?
The answer is is no. But God's
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different when we speak. If I
want to talk to any of you this
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week, I need to go to
you in person. I need to send
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you a text, I need the
email you call you, write you a
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letter. Somehow I have to sort
of get that message to you. And
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I'm trusting not only that that method
of communication is going to get to you,
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but also that you are capable of
understanding it. God's talking to bones
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here. He's talking to bones,
Oh, dry bones, he says,
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here the word of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord God to these bones,
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behold, I will cause breath to
enter you, and you shall live.
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I don't know what's in the Lord's
mind here, and it doesn't really
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matter. I don't need to know
that. But what we do see is
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him speaking to these in adamant dead, very dry head, long, long,
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left out bones, and he causes
them and he tells them to hear,
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to listen. Think about it for
a moment, just for fun,
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and encouragement. The way the Lord
speaks to other things. We don't normally
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speak to the wind, and the
Lord Jesus calls the wind and tells it
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to stop Jonah. I always think
about Jonah a great example there, right,
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Um, God speaks to the wind, stirs it up. God speaks
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to the to the fish, and
it swallows Jonah. He causes a little
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worm or something like that to eat
a plant. Right, It's a It's
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a real irony, I think in
the Book of Jonah, because everybody hearing
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the word of the Lord except for
Jonah, like the sailor. The sailors
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get it, the sea gets it, the wind gets it, the fish
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get it, the insects get it, the plant gets it. Right,
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Uh, the King of Tarsias gets
it. Or or yeah, the King
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of Tarsias get Everybody gets it except
the profit of the Lord. Everybody's hearing,
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everybody's responding, everybody's acting except the
one person you think should be.
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It's a little bit of the sort
of dark humor in that book. But
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it's a reminder. I bring it
up just to remind us that the Lord
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causes things to happen with his word. He's not like us he's not like
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us. Remember, even in the
creation of man, right, um,
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in the creation of the whole world, it was something that was spoken into
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existence, and then the creation of
man using the dust of the ground to
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create human bodies. That's amazing,
He's amazing. So we have this powerful
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word, and it's a word,
interestingly enough, that is a declaration,
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a promise. Right. He proclaims
this good news to these bones. He
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says, I will cause breath to
enter you, and you shall live.
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I will lay sinews upon you,
and you and will cause flesh to come
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upon you and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and
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you shall live, and you shall
know that I am the Lord. I
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just closed my eyes and try to
imagine this scene. That's amazing. Makes
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me also want to learn anatomy a
little better. Right, all of these
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intricate, detailed parts of our bodies
all coming together perfectly, bone to bone,
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everything in its exact right place.
Archaeologists when they find um bones,
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if things aren't intact or it's all
scattered around, it takes some time to
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kind of figure out, you know, what goes where, and this sort
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of thing here, it's just happening
organically in a way. It's like they
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they're just doing what they're supposed to
do, except their bones, remember their
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bones and flesh and skin, and
this this, this thing, this body
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is coming to life and not just
one. When we get to verse eleven,
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we read um it was an exceedingly
great army. We go from notice
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these terms, these superlative terms,
very dry bones to exceedingly great army.
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Amazing. This powerful word speaks.
God speaks Uh, this word of life.
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He prophesies. He speaks this word
through his profit, and they come
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to life. The picture of it
is accompanied by sound. In verse seven,
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So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there
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was a sound, and behold a
rattling, and the bones came together,
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bone to its bone. This is
a right life out of death. God
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speaks this word to something that is
not yet alive, and he and it
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comes alive, not because of some
internal power of the bone. Right bones
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can't do anything, but because of
the external power of God. He speaks
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to them this word, and they
come to life in stages. First Um,
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bone to bone, the sin,
you, the skin, all of
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this, and then Um a second
prophecy, a second stage comes and spirit
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is given to them life. The
breath of God is very similar to the
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creation of Adam. And when God
breathed life in he first right made him
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out of the dust of the ground, and then he breathed life into him.
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A lot of what God does in
our lives is a process. He
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doesn't have to do it that way. He could do it any kind of
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way he wanted to do it.
But a lot of times, coming to
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life, um is a process.
They think of of the man whom Jesus
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healed at his sight and can kind
of see it first, and he says,
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they look like trees walking around,
right, And then after a while,
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okay, those are people, right. Or you think of um the
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disciples and all the time that they
spent with Jesus um progressively learning and learning,
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until they finally started, especially at
Pentecost, to begin to awake as
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the spirit the breath of the Lord
came in upon his people the house of
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Israel awaking. We think about Second
Timothy three sixteen. The Word of God
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expired, breathed out profitable for abew
correction, training, and marighteousness, that
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we might become men of God alive, not very dry, but alive and
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ready to serve. In the first
instance, all of this points on to
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the house of Israel. We are
told this verse eleven. We are given
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the meaning of this of the scene
he says to me, son of Man,
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these bones are the whole house of
Israel. They say, our bones
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are dried up, and our hope
is lost. We are indeed cut off.
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Therefore prophesy and say to them,
thus says the Lord God. Behold,
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I will open your graves and raise
you from your graves on my people,
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and I will bring you into the
land of Israel. Now God did
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provide a kind of restoration and bringing
them into the land, but not exactly
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in the way that he speaks of. Here Um. There were he does
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with these, these these bones here
Um. But we don't read of another
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instance in which all the graves right
throughout Babylon and other places are opened up,
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and you know, the dead people
rise and then come into Israel.
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Um. But that doesn't mean that
God hasn't kept his promise. He kept
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at first by restoring them and bringing
them back to the land in a kind
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of shadowy way. But he will
fulfill this in a final way at the
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resurrection of the dead that is promised
to us in Jesus. And this is
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really good news for all of us, because the promise here is not just
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to the house of Israel, it
is to the world through Israel. Israel
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throughout the Old Testament is perceived as
this light, this family, through all
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the nations in the world would be
blessed. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
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comes and he lives and he dies, one of the objects, or one
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of the things that he is doing
is he brings together both Jews and Gentiles
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into one house, one house,
one people. Now this is important because
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what I'm telling you is that this
promise here in his equal applies to us,
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this promise of a great resurrection and
being brought into Um, into the
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land of Israel, not the physical
land, but the great Kingdom of God,
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even the new heavens and the new
Earth, which this land points towards
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the glorified bodies in a glorified kingdom. That's a promise not just for them,
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but for us as well. Through
Christ. Listen to Ephesians chapter two,
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verse eleven. Therefore, remember that
at one time you gentiles in the
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flesh called the uncircumcision, by what
is called the circumcision which is made in
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the flesh by hands. Remember that
you were at that time separated from Christ,
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alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.
There was a time in other words,
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when gentiles, yeah, don't read
this Isekiel thirty seven stuff and think
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it applies to you. It doesn't. Right, However, that alienation came
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to an end. Paul says,
there was a time when you were alienated
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from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers
to the Covenant of Promise, having no
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hope and without God in the world. But now this is verse thirty ten.
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In Christ Jesus, you who were
once far off, have been brought
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near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who
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has made us both one, and
has broken down in his flesh the dividing
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wall of hostility by abolishing the law
of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he
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might create in himself one new man
in place of two, so making peace
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and might reconcile us both to God
and one body through the costs, thereby
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killing the host the hostility. So
you see what Paul is saying is that
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Jesus comes, breaks down this dividing
wall and merges two formerly separate people into
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one Jews and Gentiles, which then
when we go back and read these promises
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to the House of Israel, we
are those that belong to the House of
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Israel. These are promises for us, and they are promises for us.
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In Christ, John says, for
as the Father raises the dead and gives
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them life, so also the Son
gives life to whom he will. The
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Son Jesus Christ gives life to whom
he will. You This isn't John,
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Do you remember what happens right before
that? It's a scene sort of similar
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to Ezekiel his passage and reading in
Ezekiel, it's it's a scene where there's
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this multitude of invalids laying underneath this
I think it's called the Portico of Solomon,
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all these all of these people,
and there was this pool that would
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people would try to get to to
get healing for their various infirmities. And
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there's this one man there who says, um, remembering off the top of
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my head, I think it's thirty
eight years, it's a long time.
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Anyway, he's been there a long
time. And he says and and I
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think Jesus says, do you want
to be healed. He says, I
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can't. I can't get to the
pool. And every time I try to
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go, people step before me.
And Jesus tells him to pick up his
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bed and walk. This man who
had been unable to heal himself, unable
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to get to the source of healing, unable even It's a pitiful scene,
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sort of like the value of these
bones, right, all these people just
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suffering and and and striving and and
and finding no relief. Jesus comes and
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says to him, pick up your
bed and walk, and he walks out,
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and then they want to kill Jesus. And then that's why he says
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what he says here. For as
the Father raises the dead and gives them
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life, so also the Son gives
life to whom he will first. Thessalonians
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five nine, a section that talks
about the resurrection of the dead and the
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um the appearing of our Lord and
Savior, says that we are no longer
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destined for wrath. You are not
destined for wrath, but to obtain salvation.
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He died so that we might live, and indeed we do. We
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begin that life here and now in
no longer being destined for wrath. No
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longer being destined for death, but
being counted among the living, being counted
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among those who are in Jesus,
who belong to him into his body,
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who died and rose again from the
dead. Jesus, by after all,
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by the power of God, rose
again from a rose, Yes, rose
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from from the dead, and promises
that all of us who put our faith
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in Him and in that powerful word, the word of God, the Son
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of God, we two will rise. Now this is um truly amazing,
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right, this, this passage and
his equal. We imagine that. I
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mean, if you take a ziploc
bag full of bones and just kind of
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shake it, right, you can
imagine how that's what that sound might be.
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Now, imagine a whole valley of
bones. I can't make the sound
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right trying to imagine it right,
This whole valley of bones rattling, coming
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together, coming together, standing up
the breath of God coming from the four
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winds of the of the earth,
from all of these directions, when it
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comes in and it fills them up, and there's this massive army. Amazing,
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right, amazing, and a picture
of the life of that is to
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come. But the New Testament talks
about this as well, and it's even
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more amazing. Right, if that
isn't enough, off, the passages that
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we have in in the New Testament
that speak to this are are stunning.
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I'm going to read just two to
you. First Corinthians fifteen. First of
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all, verse forty two, Paul
says, so it is with the resurrection
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of the dead. What is sown
is perishable. What is raised is imperishable.
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It is sown in dishonor it is
raised in glory. It is sown
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in weakness, it is raised in
power. It is sown a natural body,
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it is raised a spiritual body.
And this resurrection that we will receive
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is to immortality. I'm inclined to
think that Um, what Ezekiel saw or
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what Execule experienced here was a vision
like other visions that he's had, Um,
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which means that we don't need to
ask the question what happened to the
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00:30:52.799 --> 00:30:56.480
army, right like did they keep
living or did they die or something like
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that. Um, just the vision
was over and the sign had been given.
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00:31:02.599 --> 00:31:06.960
But here we know what happens to
this army. We know what happens
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when we and all who have put
their faith in Christ will raise from the
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dead. We raise imperishable, never
to die again. And if the valley,
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if the valley of dried bones,
and this great army is impressive,
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consider this passage from Revelation chapter seven. Another vision here given to John Revelation
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seven, verse nine. I'm going
to end with this we read. After
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this, I looked and behold a
great multitude that no one could number,
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from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages, standing before the
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throne and before the lamb, clothed
in white robes, with palm branches in
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their hands, and crying out with
a loud voice. Right dead people,
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but not dead anymore, crying out
with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to
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our God who sits on the throne, into the lamb. And all the
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angels were standing around the throne and
around the elders and the four living creatures.
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And they fell on their faces before
the throne and worshiped God, saying
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Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might
354
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be to our God forever and ever. Amen. This picture of heaven,
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this picture of not just a valley
of dry bones, but this great innumerable,
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this multitude of people, as many
as the sands, the pieces of
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sand on the beach, and the
stars in the heaven. These promises made
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once to Father Abraham for filled in
Christ. When we experience and see and
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feel that suffering the Israel felt,
we feel a lack of hope, when
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we feel that things are at their
end, that there's nothing left to give,
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that there's no more there, just
a dry bone. Whether we're seeing
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that in our world, whether we're
seeing that in our own hearts, we
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know that we can look to God
in Christ and have resurrection from the dead.
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That's his promise to us, and
it's a promise that he um.
365
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It's a promise that he has already
begun to fulfill with his own resurrection and
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the newness of life that we have
in him. So let's learn to call
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out to him, to depend on
him and look on him for every miracle
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that we need. Let's pray,
our Lord God, if it were not
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for your salvation, Um, we
would still be dead and dying. If
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it were not for your salvation,
we would not be grafted onto this great
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vine of life. We would not
be a part of the tree of your
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people, this great family tree.
We would be still alienated separated, destined
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for wrath. But as it stands
because He, our Lord and Savior,
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stands because he has risen from the
dead, and we are in him.
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We are as bones that have come
to life. We are those who are
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once chained and have been set free. We are those who are once in
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darkness, but have now seen and
come to love the light. No longer
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wasting our ways, simply letting the
things of death overtake us and enslave us.
379
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Oh Lord, but now we put
to death that flesh that isn't in
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us. We put it to death
through the cross of Christ. And we
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live. We live by the spirit
of God, who has breathed out on
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us, and who has baptized us, who has caused us to be reborn
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unto newness of life, that we
might serve and live and praise and sing
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of Your most holy name. Lord, we asked that we would um,
385
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we would be these kinds of servants, alive servants, joyful servants, praising
386
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servants in every way. And we
asked that in all this you would receive
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all the glory and praise in Jesus
name, our Savior. Amen.
