FBC Morning Light – October 7, 2022

Well, good Friday morning to you. We are coming to the end of another week. Looking forward to the

Lord's Day on Sunday, an opportunity to gather together as God's people. I hope you're planning to do so.

Well, today we're reading in our Bible reading in Ezekiel chapter 37, 38, and this passage contains one of the most familiar sections in all of the book of Ezekiel.

It's that vision of the dry bones. You're familiar with that, are you not?

Ezekiel is taken out into the midst of a valley and he looks out over that valley and it's just filled with a bunch of bones, dry bones.

Not skeletons, but bones scattered all over this valley. And the

Lord asks Ezekiel a question. He says, can these bones live?

Well, that seems like a rhetorical question, doesn't it? It seems like a very simple answer.

No, they're dead, dry bones. But Ezekiel was smart enough to say, well,

Lord, you know, you know. So then the

Lord tells him to prophesy to these bones. He says, you prophesy to these bones and says to them, hear the word of the

Lord. And he says, I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. So Ezekiel does that.

He prophesies to these dry bones. And when he does, the bones start coming together.

And, you know, there's that old spiritual song, ankle bones connected to the shin bone, the shin bones connected to the knee bone, the knee bones connected to the thigh bone and, you know, so on.

That's where that comes from, right? So these bones all come together. There's great rattling and the bones all come together and they form skeletons.

And then sinews, muscles come on to the skeletons and they get covered with skin.

And yet there they are, still a horde of lifeless corpses lying in this valley.

And then he asks the prophet again to prophesy.

He says, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus says the

Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live.

So I prophesied as he commanded and breath came into them and they lived and they stood upon their feet an exceedingly great army.

Now this vision was given to Ezekiel to pass on and share with the people of Israel because they were dead.

They were dead. Their hope was dried up like these dry bones and they had no reason whatsoever to hope that life would be any better for them, that they as a nation would ever be restored.

But the Lord says, behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.

Then shall you know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves and brought you up from your graves. I will put my spirit in you and you shall live and I will place you in your own land.

Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and performed it. So the Lord gives Ezekiel this vision so that his people would be encouraged in the midst of their absolute hopelessness.

But I don't want us to miss something very important here, a timeless truth that affects everybody to this day.

And that is, life is given by God and spiritual life likewise is given by God.

It is of his sovereign power that he breathes life into those who are dead in trespasses and sins.

There is no more hope for a sinner who is dead in trespasses and sins of living spiritually, being spiritually alive, than there is for a valley of dry bones, for those bones to come together and to form an army.

There's no more hope for one than the other. Where is the hope?

The hope is found only in the decree and the power of God, in the breathing of his breath into that lifeless dead corpse.

And this is exactly what happened to you when you came to faith in Christ. God in his grace breathed life into you that you might believe and that you might be saved.

Oh, what a wonderful, gracious redeemer we have. Let's give thanks today to our life -giving

God that he, if you have trusted Christ as your Savior, that by his grace he has breathed new life into you, he's breathed spiritual life into you, that you might be saved.

Our Father and our God, we are grateful for your power today. We're grateful for your life -giving spirit.

We're thankful that though we were dead in trespasses and sins, by your grace you made us alive in Christ Jesus.

Thank you for your sovereign grace, for your gift of life in Christ Jesus.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well,

I trust the Lord will give you a good weekend and if you can make it to the Lord's house on Sunday, we'd be glad to have you at Faith Baptist and encourage you to come for Sunday school hour at 9 .30

for all ages and then the morning service at 10 .30 and then we have a Sunday evening service at 6 as well.

Be glad to have you visit with us and be there on the Lord's day. Have a good day. God bless.