The Bible in 16 Verses: 10. "Resurrection Promised" Ezek 37:3-5

Okay, so as of right now, we're on session number 10, which is, the time is coming.

We're still in the Old Testament. We've gone through creation, Adam and Eve, the fall, redemption promise,

Abraham, Judah the king, the Passover lamb, King David, the suffering servant. Today we're going to go over resurrection promised.

Next week will be the new creation. We'll follow that up with the fulfillment of all these things, which would be session 12.

Then the cross, resurrection, justification, and ultimately glory, ours and God's.

So today, our verse for the day is, and he said to me, son of man, can these bones live?

And I answered, O Lord God, you know. Then he said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them,

O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.

Amen. Our quote for the week, many who plan to seek God at the 11th hour, die at 1030.

No man is promised tomorrow. No man is promised the next hour. While you have breath in your mouth, confess

Jesus as Lord. Okay, so last week we learned about federal headship and substitution.

Obviously in Isaiah 53, God told us about the suffering servant who would bear the sins, the iniquities of his people, okay, and he would represent them.

Obviously we know that to be Jesus. We haven't got to that point in the story yet, but this will be the future fulfillment of that.

And he was our substitute. He stood in our place at the cross so that when

Jesus was punished, we were punished. When Jesus was buried, we were buried. And when

Jesus rose from the dead, we rose from the dead with him because we are in Christ. Those who have repented of their sins and are trusting in Christ for salvation are in Christ.

So he took the punishment that we deserve on him so that we can live.

If there was no substitute, we would be punished for our own sins. So what you need to remember, when you stand before God, every sin in this world committed will be paid for.

It will either be paid for by Jesus or it will be paid for by you. For justice to be served, every sin must be accounted for.

So the message of the gospel is this, repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.

He will be your substitute if you place your faith and trust in him. So the story so far goes like this.

God created a very good kingdom of which he is the king. He created human beings, his children, to represent him in that kingdom, and they were responsible to expand it.

Through their sin, Adam and Eve rejected God's commission and rebelled against their father and creator. Yet, God proved his covenant love toward them despite their unfaithfulness.

Very good did not turn into very bad. It just proved the character of who was always very good.

There will be ongoing enmity between the offspring from now on, but God promised a redeemer who will crush the head of the enemy and secure

God's victory. With this promise, very bad turned into very hopeful. Next, God chose

Abraham, an idolater, to bring the seed through whom the covenant blessings would come to all the families of the world.

Despite the sinful lineage of Abraham's family, and specifically Judah's royal seed through David, God is still faithful to bring the covenant blessings to the world, which would be ruled by a faithful king.

Because all people were guilty and deserved death, the blood sacrifices of the Mosaic Law revealed more clearly their guilt and ongoing need for a substitute, the one suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

So that's where we're up to at this point in the story. So now, we're going to get to Ezekiel 37.

At this point, we've seen God's covenants with Adam and Noah, with Abraham, with the nation of Israel in the law, and with David.

In each and every one, mankind cannot satisfy the demands. But there is one more covenant in the

Old Testament that we need to look at so that we can understand Ezekiel's prophecy. Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah speak of another covenant that God would make.

Jeremiah is sometimes called the weeping prophet because during his ministry, Babylon conquered the kingdom of Judah and took many of its citizens captive.

But Jeremiah's message was not all doom and gloom. A remarkable ray of hope broke through the shadows of captivity when

God gave him the prophecy of a new covenant. So up until this point, the Mosaic Law stands as the last covenant that Israel has to keep the demands of that covenant or be spewed out of the land.

Now because they were disobedient, Assyria came in and attacked the ten northern tribes.

Babylon came in, attacked the southern tribes, and deported them, brought them to Babylon.

So they started intermingling and intermarrying with other people, deluding the law of God.

So now Jeremiah is going to tell them while they're in captivity, think about it, they saw the northern tribes be destroyed, they are now being taken over by the

Babylonians and brought into a foreign land, they are desperate. And now Jeremiah comes in and Ezekiel comes in and promises them a new covenant, not like the one that they're in now.

So just to let you know, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are prophesying about approximately the same time.

The kingdom of Judah is what Daniel was prophesying about with Nebuchadnezzar.

Jeremiah comes in, tells them about the new covenant. While they're in captivity, Ezekiel comes in and is prophesying to them.

So this is the Babylonian captivity, 70 years. Eventually they're going to be brought out of that and God is going to stir up the heart of Cyrus to bring them back to the land to rebuild the temple.

So I just wanted to give you a quick timeline as to where we're at. In that dark time,

God told the people, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

God promised to make a new covenant that would build on the previous covenants and ultimately be the way that he would fulfill them all.

Ultimately, the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 is going to be the one who comes into the world and keeps

God's law perfectly because no human being had up until that point. He went on to unpack this covenant.

I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more.

Something really important to know, if you are in the new covenant, you know the Lord. The new covenant is based on God's revelation of his son to you such that you understand and know it.

This is why we do not baptize infants. Infants do not know the Lord in that way.

Presbyterians and Pedobaptists are going to say, when you baptize your child, they are now in the new covenant.

But if you are in the new covenant, you know the Lord. How many babies know the Lord? How many little children know the

Lord? That's why we evangelize our children. We speak the gospel to them. We raise them in the fear and admonition of the

Lord. But it's only until God opens their eyes, their ears, and their hearts do we say yes.

And they make a credible profession of faith that we say yes, now they are in the new covenant. Baptism doesn't put you in the new covenant.

What puts you in the new covenant is circumcision of heart. Baptism is the first act of obedience as a display of you being in Christ and identifying with his death, burial, and resurrection.

Jeremiah 31, this is the new covenant. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

Lord. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God. They shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me.

From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Now, I highlighted the I wills because those are the things that God does. He says, I will,

I will, I will. He doesn't say, I will try. He doesn't say, I'll give it a good go.

He says, I'm going to do this. This is a unilateral covenant. This is a covenant of grace where God is going to accomplish it.

He makes the promise, and then he accomplishes it apart from our obedience. Thank God. It's not like the old covenant.

Jeremiah 32, for the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth.

Anybody relate? Everybody should have put their hand up just to let you know. The children of Israel have done nothing but provoke me to anger by the work of their hands, declares the

Lord. This city has aroused my anger and wrath from the day it was built to this day so that I will remove it from my sight because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger.

Their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

So this wasn't just the citizens of Israel that broke God's law. This is the kings, the priests, the prophets, everyone has disobeyed

God. This is the universal sinfulness of mankind. We come into this world born as sinners, right, in rebellion to God.

This statement is basically showing you who the seed of the woman and who the seed of the serpent is. The seed of the serpent rebels against God.

Israel, all Israelites were rebelling against God as was the rest of all humanity. This is why a new covenant is necessary, one that he accomplishes in our place.

They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction.

They set up their abominations in the house that is called by my name to defile it. They built high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech.

Though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination to cause

Judah to sin. Now a lot of people look at that and they say, oh, they offered up their sons and daughters to Molech.

That's like what people do with abortion right now. And it's true, right? For the sake of convenience, they'll sacrifice their child, but how many

Christians sacrifice their children on a football field, a soccer field, dance, this, that, and don't go to Sunday service?

Is that not an abomination? You need to raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The Lord's day takes priority over football, baseball, soccer, whatever sport or whatever event you're in.

The Lord's day takes precedent over that. That's an abomination. So none of the

Israelites lived up to the obedience of the law and neither have we. And this is why it's necessary to have a covenant of grace.

They didn't deserve it, nor do we. Behold, I will gather them from all the countries which

I drove them in my anger and my wrath and great indignation. I will bring them back to this place and I will make them dwell in safety and they shall be my people and I will be their

God. I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for their own good and the good of the children after them.

I love the fact that he's going to give us one heart and one way that we may fear him for how long?

Forever. When God changes your heart, you will have a healthy fear of the

Lord forever. It's not temporary. Right. So in my prayers every morning,

I pray that God would keep a fear of himself in my heart that I would not turn to the right or to the left.

Right. I want to make sure that I'm walking in reverence to the God who saved me. God says,

I will. 27 times in Jeremiah 36 and 37. Right.

So this is God saying, I will. I will. I will. And he who searches the hearts, searches hearts, knows what is in the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that for those who who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

And the reason I did that was because all these I wills. Okay. This is

God doing something. And I see in the New Testament, Paul writing this.

For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom he, God predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he justified.

And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Right. God foreknew.

That word foreknow is a verb. It's God doing something. Foreknowledge doesn't mean

God knows what's going to happen in advance. The word know is intimacy.

In the book of Hosea, God says, is only you have

I known out of all the other nations of the world. Known meaning intimate. God foreloves.

He sets his love on a certain people in advance. Those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

So God foreknows. He predestines. He predestines. He also calls.

Those whom he calls, he also justifies. And those whom he justifies, he glorifies.

Who's the one doing all the work in this verse? The Lord. Salvation is of the

Lord, Jonah says. And you know why? Because salvation is of the Lord. It's not of man.

This is not hard. Right. So when we recognize that our hearts have been changed, we know that it wasn't something that we did.

Did we make a profession of faith? Did we repent? Yes, because God granted it. Thankfully. And he doesn't have to do that for everyone.

So this is a New Testament parallel to the old covenant I wills in Ezekiel and Jeremiah.

God says he will eight times in Romans 8, 29 and 30. Right. So the

I wills in Ezekiel and Jeremiah are paralleled with the he wills or I wills in Romans chapter eight.

This is good news. Right. This means that your salvation is not dependent on you and your obedience.

It's dependent on God who changes your heart. And he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it.

That's why he gets all the glory. And when we stand before God, any crowns that we get, we're going to take them and throw them at the feet of Jesus.

Why? Because he worked in me and through me to accomplish that. What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? You realize that if the spirit of God dwells in you and he circumcised your heart and you've been born from above,

God is for you. You need not fear anyone. You need not fear anything, especially those people who don't know what a woman is.

Don't fear the public. Right. God goes before us. He stands behind us.

When we go out, we go out in the presence of God. Jesus says, I will be with you even to the end of the age.

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

In addition to everything that God calls you to do, he equips you to do it. He gives you the desire.

He gives you his spirit. He gives you the mind of Christ. He gives you the scriptures. He gives you godly teaches.

He gives you the church. He equips you to do the job. So when we go out into the street later, when we go out into the parade and we talk to people, we're empowered by God's spirit to do it.

And we seek to glorify God in the midst of it. And it's not that we're going out and we're condemning people.

We are on a rescue mission. We're there to rescue people and pull them out of darkness and bring them into the light, which is the function of the spirit.

He just uses our words to accomplish that. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

Remember what Job did? Remember what Satan did in the book of Job? Satan brought accusations against Job to God.

That can no longer happen because Satan has been defeated at the cross. He can't make a charge against us anymore.

And if he does, Jesus said, yeah, I paid for that. Oh, he watched pornography. I paid for that. Oh, he did this.

They did that. I paid for that. I paid for those sins. Those sins are paid for. You never need fear the one who holds the keys to death in Hades.

If he's your savior. It is God who justifies who is to condemn.

Who can condemn you? If you're a child of God, no one can condemn you. Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, who was raised, who's at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us.

Do you realize if Jesus is your savior, he's interceding for you? Do you think any of Jesus's prayers go unanswered?

Not at all. Not at all. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. So, yeah, things in the world are ugly.

They're going in the wrong direction. But nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. You have eternal life never to be taken away.

Stand tall for your king. Be bold. The righteous are as bold as a lion.

The wicked flee, though no one pursue. Right. You know who goes before you. You know who stands behind you.

The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. They cannot be pulled back.

Once God sets his perfect love upon you, that will never change. It will never weaken.

It will never get any stronger. Why? Because it's perfect. It's the very same love he has for Jesus Christ.

He now has that love for you and empowers you to carry out what he's commanded us to do.

You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God.

That's why we, as Reformed people, believe in the perseverance or the preservation of the saints.

Once God births you, you are his child forever. You can't lose that. Right. Once I gave birth to my children, no matter how disobedient they may be, they'll always be my children.

They can't stop being my child. Why? Because me and my wife gave birth to them the same.

How much more when the Holy Spirit changes the heart and births spiritually births you, you cannot now be unbirthed.

If that was the case, you could lose your salvation. And John MacArthur says it best. If you could lose your salvation, you would.

Every one of us is sinners at some point in time is going to sin. If sin is what causes you to lose your salvation, well, then

Jesus's death on the cross is not worth anything. Or if you believe that your sin can separate you from from God, then what you're saying is your sin is more powerful than Jesus's sacrifice on the cross.

That's arrogant. Jesus's sacrifice on the cross is much bigger than you recognize, and it will cover every single sin that you've committed.

I'm not advocating that you sin. I'm advocating that you follow the Savior and walk in obedience.

But like we say every Sunday morning, if we sin and confess our sins,

God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and cleanse us of our unrighteousness. Praise God.

So what exactly does Ezekiel say? We talked about Jeremiah and we talked about Paul. Ezekiel says this,

I will take you from the nations and will gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you should be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols.

I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Remember, look at all the I wills again. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk on my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

So if you're born of God's spirit, your heart is changed. The spirit of God lives in you and compels you to keep

God's law. We don't keep God's law in order to be born again. We're born again in order to keep

God's law. The law is not a barometer of us getting into heaven or not into heaven.

The law is the law is a mirror to show us where we fell and where we need to work.

Thank God our getting into heaven is not based on us keeping the law. Is it based on keeping the law?

Yes. In the sense that Jesus completed it for us. If you're born of God's spirit, you are one of his children.

Thank God for Jesus who kept that law on your behalf. I will put my spirit and cause you to walk on my statutes and be careful, obey my rules.

You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness.

Wow. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and increase of the field abundant that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.

Right. This is all God saying, I will, I will, I will. Did they deserve it?

No. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.

That's our part. That's a promise of the new covenant. Right. Have you ever been dwelling, praying, meditating on God's word and just recognizing your own sinfulness and the fact that you don't deserve salvation, but you have it?

This makes you all the more grateful for Jesus Christ. I loathe my sin.

I loathe myself. Sometimes it brings despair upon me and I have to look to the cross.

Jesus, that is the certified check that God gave to pay the price for my sins.

Apart from Jesus Christ, I have nothing, nothing. This is glorious.

Right. We should loathe our sins. Those sins are what put Jesus on the cross. Yet he saved us anyway.

Amazing. Amazing. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the

Lord. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.

Right. So here's a dichotomy, because when we go out into the streets and we talk to people,

I tell them that they're image bearers of God with with inherent dignity and worth.

Right. They're they're image bearers of God. He's created them. They were knit together in their mother's wombs.

They have value before God. What's the problem? Their hearts are twisted.

They're marred. They're stained by sin. So although we're incredibly valuable, we're also incredibly sinful.

And that sin part needs to be dealt with. That's why we have a new covenant. In short,

God was saying he would finally bring the blessing of Abraham, the blessing lost at the fall by giving his people new hearts and forgiving all of their sins.

In other words, he would bring the spiritually dead to life. God would dwell among his people and the effects of sin would be no more.

We saw in the previous lesson that the suffering servant would remove their sin. Then Jeremiah's prophecy tells us when he removes sin, a new covenant would be established whereby

God would finally dwell with his people. Ultimately, we see heaven coming to earth and the final consummation of all things.

God, Jesus is going to be on the earth and dwell with all of his people. Incredible to even think that.

But we still have one problem. What about death? Right. We've dealt with the sin issue.

The blessing of God's presence in this life is good, but death is still lurking around the corner, waiting to snuff out that blessing.

Newsflash, spoiler alert, everybody in here is going to die. No way around it.

It's the consequences. The wages of sin is death. So God now, aside from paying our sins, has to deal with the curse of the sin, death.

Short time after God gave his new covenant promises to Jeremiah, he came to Ezekiel with a series of amazing visions.

One of the most vivid pictures in Ezekiel's prophecy, and maybe the entire Bible, is the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.

These amazing prophecies help us to see how God planned to overcome death on the other side of the suffering servant's substitutionary sacrifice.

And he said to me, this is to Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones live?

Ezekiel answered, oh, Lord God, you know, but he's like, you know, if they're going to live or not, don't ask me.

I'm not, this is a multiple choice question and I'll still get it wrong. Then God said to him, prophesy over these bones and say to them, oh, dry bones, hear the word of the

Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.

Again, it's the Lord God speaking. What does he say? I will.

I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. Pile of dead bones.

What can dead bones do? Nothing. They can't move. They can't breathe.

They do nothing. What do they need in order to be raised to life?

They need an outside force, an outside power to act upon them to bring them to life.

They didn't choose it. They couldn't choose it. They're dead. This is a picture of humanity from the womb.

We are dead in our sins and transgressions. We do not have eyes to see. We do not have ears to hear. We do not have a heart to believe.

That's why God has to act unilaterally and rescue us. Again, if you're a born again child of God, it is because God rescued you.

Be grateful. Be bold. Honor your king. At that time when

God gave Ezekiel this vision, not many in Judah were optimistic about the future. Remember, they were taken over by Babylonian and deported.

They were saying our bones are dried up. Our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off. In the aftermath of the devastation that Babylon had brought to the nation, it was hard to see much hope.

Few, if any, families had escaped death and suffering, and the nation itself had lost its independence and hope.

The idea of the seed of Abraham crushing the serpent and bringing the blessing of God to the nations seemed a long way off.

It seemed like this is never going to happen. We're never going to see this. God brought

Ezekiel to the valley filled with dry bones, bleached by the sun. Then he asked the prophet the most amazing question, can these bones live?

If you were to come across the grisly sight of piles and piles of dried bones, it would probably not cross your mind to wonder whether those bones could live or not.

You would just want to bury them and forget that you ever saw them. Ezekiel cautiously answered, Oh, Lord God, you know, after all, he was talking to the giver of life, but he could not imagine what would happen next.

God commanded Ezekiel to speak to those dried, dusty bones and say, Oh, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the

Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. Not only would breath enter the bones, he went on to say, but sinew, flesh and skin would cover them.

God said they would truly live. So Ezekiel stood over the bones and said what

God told him to say. Immediately, the bones came together and would cover the flesh and skin.

The hopeless valley filled with dry bones suddenly became a witness to the power of God's word.

This is what happens every time we go down into Port Jeff or today into Patchogue, wherever we are, dead man walking.

What do we do? We prophesy. We tell them what God told them. Repent, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and you will have eternal life. Right. And it's the power of God's word that changes them.

It's nothing in us. We are just repeating the message that God told us to tell them. And we plead with them for their souls.

I've told the people today, when you go out, be eager to share your testimony. Tell them how

God and Jesus intersected your life and radically changed you. You were dead.

I was. There's a scripture says there's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to destruction.

I was on that path until somebody came to me and said, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one gets to the father, but through me, I had to turn from this way and go that way. The path of Jesus and be joined back together with my creator.

When you're walking with the creator, according to his purpose and his plan, things go better, radically better.

You are now walking in righteousness towards your creator, not away from him. Remember what we saw at the beginning of our journey?

Then God said, God said, let there be light. God said, we'll form the land.

God said to God, breathe. And Adam and Eve came to life.

God speaks and things happen. God's words give life.

When we repeat God's words to the people out on the street, it gives them life. Death will be conquered at the proclamation of the gospel.

The dead will hear and live. After Ezekiel spoke, those dead and dry bones were whole again, but they still were not alive.

So God commanded Ezekiel to tell the breath or the spirit to come and enter into the dead.

When it did, they came to life and stood on their feet. And don't miss this. When the spirit from God entered them, the dry bones lived.

They came to life. The picture could not be clearer. The spirit of God gives life, both in the first creation and also here in the new creation.

So when God created the heavens and the earth, the spirit hovered over the waters and brought order out of the chaos.

In the new creation, the spirit of life, when God breathed the spirit into Adam, he came to life.

God now breathes the spirit into us and we come to life. It's the spirit that gives life.

Just in case the people had not picked up on the meaning of this vision yet. God told Ezekiel to explain what it symbolized.

Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel.

And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.

And I will place in your own land, place you in your own land. Then you know, you shall know that I am the

Lord. In fact, when you read John chapter five, God says this is the first resurrection, right?

When God speaks and people are born again, they are brought out of the grave of their own body.

Now the God spirit lives within them and they are children of God. The meaning of this vision was that God would not abandon his people to death.

He would, by his spirit, one day defeat death and bring them into the land that he had promised them.

This would be a reversal of the curse. Once again, God would live with his people in the land that he gave to them.

Now, the new covenant expands the land promise where God promised Israel the land of Israel.

The new covenant, what does Jesus say? Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth.

It's not just a little sliver of land. God's people are going to inhabit the whole earth. That's our inheritance.

Jesus is Lord over all. It's all his. There's not one inch of land that does not cry mine, right?

He owns it all. And he said to me,

O son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, you know, the hand of the

Lord was upon me. He brought me out by the spirit of the

Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones.

He led me back and forth among them. And I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley.

He asked me, son of man, can these bones live? I said,

O sovereign Lord, you alone know. Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the voice of the

Lord. I will make breath into you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the

Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound and the bones came together bone to bone.

I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them. But there was no breath.

Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath and say to it, come from the four winds,

O breath and breathe into these slain. So I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath entered them, they came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army.

Remember, the goal all along has been the same. God said he would crush the head of the serpent through the promised offspring of the woman.

But to do this, indeed, he needed to defeat sin and death through the substitutionary sacrifice of the suffering servant.

The sin debt of God's people would be paid. He would be the final and complete sacrifice.

And in the new covenant, God promised to forgive all of his people and put his law on their hearts.

Sin would be defeated through the servant sacrifice. God was promising an amazing victory.

Once sin was defeated, death's power would die with it. It would no longer hold his people captive.

Where Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy, God comes to give new life and recreate the new creation, right?

So we read in Genesis 1 .1, what are the first words of Genesis 1 .1? In the beginning,

God, what are we reading, John 1 .1? In the beginning, the word, right?

This is the beginning of the new creation. He has started the new creation here.

It's inaugurated, it's growing, and when he comes back, it will be consummated.

The entire earth will be transformed for God's glory. Then God would send his spirit to give people life to,

I'm sorry, God would send his spirit to give life to his people. It only stands to reason that the first and primary way this would happen was that he would give life to the servant, the representative of God's people.

So the promise of Ezekiel 37 was that once sin was defeated, the power of death would be removed.

And once the power of death was removed, God's spirit would have free reign to give life, first to the servant, then to all those who received the forgiveness of sin promised in the new covenant and won by that servant's death.

And the servant, obviously, is Jesus. Through this vision in Ezekiel 37,

God was promising a new creation. A resurrection and a new creation.

In the prophets, we see the way God would finally defeat the serpent through the seed of the woman who must also be the suffering servant.

The wisdom of God unpacked as we wind our way through this plan of redemption in the Old Testament is remarkable.

We're not we're not quite done yet with the Old Testament. We have one more stop that will point us forward to what is to come.

So the theological themes that we went over today is new covenant and new creation.

The new covenant brings with it new creation. The new covenant, the Holy Spirit brings with it new belief.

Right. So when our hearts and minds are changed, our beliefs are changed. Our minds and hearts are now directed towards the

Savior, pursuing him rather than running away. We are brought to life spiritually.

Previously, we're spiritually dead. We were surrounded by our flesh, the world, the flesh and the devil.

And we are pursuing that we're we're in darkness and our minds and hearts are devoted to our sin.

We love our sin. We hate the light and love our sin. It's only until God comes in with his spirit, breathes it into us, not because we deserve it, but because he chose to give it to us.

That now our eyes and our ears and our hearts are changed and we pursue God. So with the new covenant comes a new creation.

So our story so far, God created a very good kingdom of which he is the king.

He created human beings, his children, to represent them in that kingdom, and they were responsible to expand it.

Through their sin, Adam and Eve rejected God's commission and rebelled against their father and creator. Yet God proved his covenant love toward them despite their unfaithfulness.

Very good did not turn into very bad. It just proved the character of who was always very good. There will be ongoing enmity between the offspring from now on.

But God promised a redeemer who crushed the head of the enemy and secure God's victory. With this promise, very bad turned into very hopeful.

Next, God chose Abraham, an idolater, to bring the seed through whom the covenant blessings would come to all the families of the world.

Despite the sinful lineage of Abraham's family and specifically Judah's royal seed through David, God is still faithful to bring the covenant blessings to the world, which would be ruled by his faithful king.

Because all people were guilty and deserve death. The blood sacrifices of the Mosaic law revealed more clearly their guilt and ongoing need for a substitute.

The one suffering servant of Isaiah 53. Through the servant and the work of the spirit, God would establish a new covenant and give a lasting life to his people.

Questions? Anything pop out to you that you wanted further clarification on?

Anything that the I wills? Yeah. When God says, I will, he will.

Right. And think about it. When God says, all things work together for good for those whom

God loves. Can anyone else secure that promise but God? I hear people telling me, oh, don't worry, it's going to work out.

I'm like, how do you know that? How you can you? I mean, you say that and that's nice. I know you're trying to encourage me, but you can't guarantee that.

But when God says, all things work for good, I will work all things together for good for those who love me.

Guess what? All things work. We'll work together for your good because he's the one who can bring that to pass.

No human being can. That's a great promise for the people of God. Yes. Amen.

Yeah. We're going to recognize our own sinfulness and the flesh, the world, the flesh and the devil that pulls us in that direction.

Thankfully, we have a stronger power pulling us in the other direction. Right. Nothing will separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

No one can pluck them out of my hand. No one can pluck them out of my father's hand. I and the father are one. Right. And then you have people say, oh, no, you could walk out.

Really? Jesus has got his hand on you and God, the father's got his hand over Jesus on you.

And that's not enough. God help you. God help you.

What what is going to save you from all of yours? What is going to keep you walking in in in God's plan?

Your own strength, the strength of Jesus and God and being God, the father's hand is not going to do it. It's your own strength, ultimately, is what you're saying.

God help you. God help you. I pray that they see it. He who began a good work and he was faithful to complete it.

The benediction in Job, not Job, Jude, right, to him who was able to keep you from falling and present you before his throne without spot or blemish.

Greatest benediction ever. Thank you, Lord. He's the one who's keeping us. All glory goes to him.