FHBC Sermon Notes

Can the dead be raised? Are we dead? This morning we consider death more closely and in turn we consider life.  This is my 200 post.  A milestone for sure and a dot on the road to eternity. Thank you Jesus for the privilege of abiding in your Word.God's dealings with what He calls the whole house of Israel, deals with a covenant relationship that God initiates.

1) God is Present with Purpose - Verse 1: The Word of the Lord came to Ezekiel in exile. The Babylonians had taken all the people, the leaders, the people of craft and skill. Taken them far away. This removed them from their place of worship. Even before this tragedy, the kingdom had been split, North and South.

Yet, God had promised that his people would be one people. United for the glory of his name, with one King, blameless, righteous and worthy.  How was this to be?

2) God Revelatory Questions - Verse 2: God shows Ezekiel a scene most dire. A valley of exposed skeletons, of peoples bones, dead, dried up.  So God asks a question,

"Son of man, can these bones live?"

Similar to the question in Genesis when God asks of Adam,

"Where are you?" 

God is all knowing and all powerful. These are questions in which the speaker is the evidence of the answer. God knows. God can.  God will. 


3) Ezekiel's answers shows a submission to word of God:

Ezekiel's answer speaks this message.

"O Lord GOD, you know."

What we are not left wondering. God is glorified in the weak, in those things which the world can not see as valuable, practical, or necessary.  Indeed, Our God, can do that which is never seemingly possible. He has promised and he will do it. He will bring dead bones to life. Our bones.

Yet, in this time, today in this age, we feel it the same. We like the old Israel are in exile still.  We the new Israel, the church, people of God, we are in exile. It is for this reason that sometimes worship in this age are so difficult.

Our answer, therefore, is the same. "O Lord GOD, you know." If we come here and go out having listened, and God is not larger in our life than when we entered, then we missed the boat. This is not something we go the polls and vote on.  It is, and is so.  God knows.

4) God gives life by the proclamation of his Word:
God's word is powerful. He spoke the world into creation. That is powerful.  I have trouble getting my son to do something. "Get ready for bed..." "I don't want too..." 

"The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword."

5) God proclaims, God does this so that man may know who he is.

 What did Ezekiel do with that command. He prophesied. To the wind, to the Spirit. He called out and prophesied that God saves. 

We are called to do likewise. We are called to proclaimed to a world in which dead bones still lay. There is life in the Word of God.  There is life in Jesus.

The world things all this is foolishness, but this day by Word and the Spirit, from our midst went those to Romania, go we this week to our work and homes to do likewise.

Amen!

1jAnd you were kdead in the trespasses and sins 2lin which you once walked, following the course of this world, following mthe prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in nthe sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in othe passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body1 and the mind, and pwere by nature qchildren of wrath, like the rest of mankind.2 4But1 God, being rrich in mercy, sbecause of the great love with which he loved us, 5even twhen we were dead in our trespasses, umade us alive together with Christ—vby grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and wseated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable xriches of his grace in ykindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

Perhaps the most beautiful words in the Bible,

"...but GOD."