Dose Bones: Part Three by Stewart-Allen Clark

Ezekiel 37:1-10
Verse 7 of Ezekiel 37 says:

“Again he said unto me, ‘Prophesy upon these bones, and say to them, ‘O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So, I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking and the bones came together, bone to his bone.”

Dose bones in this valley need a shake. There are several types of bones found in “Dry Valley” churches:

• · The Wishbones – These are people who spend all their time wishing somebody else would do it.

• · The Jawbones – These are people who yak all the time and do little else!

• · The Knucklebones – These are people who criticize everything the church is trying to do!

• · The Elbow Bones – These are people who elbow jab anyone who happens to be sitting next to them during sermons because they are certain the preacher is speaking directly to their seat partner and not to themselves.

• · The Broken Back Bones – These are the people who finally got tired of carrying the load of the entire church in addition to their own.

In his book, Ezekiel was trying to communicate that the dry bones in his vision are aching for a shaking. Ezekiel 37:7-8 says:

“So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied there was a sound, and behold a rattling  and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And I looked and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them … “

God had basically said, “Dose bones need a shake.” Look at what happened what happened when he did. The Wishbones, Jawbones, Knucklebones, Elbow Bones, and Broken Back Bones felt a “shake, rattle and a rolling” of the Spirit in the bone yard of lifelessness. And dose bones said, “Did you feel that shake, brother? Did you hear that rattle, sister? It felt like life just rolled by!”

Then all of a sudden those skeletons got meat back on dose bones! The Bible says the “sinews,” the “tendons” that hold the skin and muscle all together came back on. Metaphorically speaking, that sounds like what “loving God and each other” does in the New Testament church to me! There isn’t anything like a little shaking, rattling and a rolling of the Spirit and the Word of God to bring life back to the bone yard of the church. Dose bones were aching for a shaking, but that’s not all they needed!

Dose bones needed air. They needed oxygen in them to be alive. Verse 8-10 says:

“And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, ‘prophesy unto the wind. Thus saith the Lord God; come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived.”

These verses made me think of CPR, and how someone who is lifeless is resuscitated. I’ve never administered CPR, but there seems to be a plan to it. You put your mouth over the lifeless person and breathe into them, pressing on their chest, and continuing in this manner until they come alive. Ezekiel is like the man seeing someone lifeless and in need of CPR, and he asks God, “Can these bones live again?” Just as a medic has a plan to revive seemingly dead bodies, God has a three-fold plan to revive a truly dead church:

1. Preach the Word of God (vs. 4). In this passage we read, “Then he said unto me, ‘Prophesy (that means to preach in the New Testament), over these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” That tells me where the Word of God is preached, there’s the breath of the Holy Spirit, and where the breath of the Holy Spirit is there’s life in that church! That tells me we need to man-up and do what II Timothy 4:2 says, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine.” God to keep the church from becoming a valley of dry bones, we should busy ourselves with preaching the Word. This will mean not watering it down, not trying to improve it, not trying to rationalize it, not apologizing for it—just preaching it!”

2. Preach in the Power of the Holy Spirit (vs. 9). This passage says, “Then he said to me, ‘Preach to the breath; prophesy son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath breathe on the slain, that they might live.” The second way to perform CPR on a dead church is to preach the Word with the (breath), or the power of the Holy Spirit upon it.

3. Preach as if Life Depends on It (vs. 9b). The last phrase of verse 9 says, ” … that they might live.” This is key. You want to be successful in performing CPR on a dead church. Preach the Word like the life of your listeners depended on it!

The Impeccability of Christ: Part Four by Jason Carney

The period of temptation recorded in the gospels would not be His last temptation of Christ. In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus cried out in weakness. He wanted the cup of God’s wrath to pass from Him (Matthew 26:39). But Jesus, in His holiness, refuses the temptation Himself by saying, “nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

The letter of Hebrews has much to say about our High Priest and His temptations. Its writer affirms the reality of Jesus’ temptations:

• · “For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 4:15).
• · “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted like we are” (Hebrews 4:15).
• · “He learned obedience through what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

These are just three of the many examples. To say that Jesus is impeccable does not make His temptation any less significant. It just proves that He was fully human. They also prove that He was God, because we know that no man can escape temptation unblemished every time. This the second Adam. Let’s take a look at what we learn of Jesus’ impeccability from the first Adam.

The first Adam was the first man in all creation. When God made the first Adam, He placed him in the garden. Adam was a perfect man, righteous, guiltless, and naked. He had an intimate personal relationship with God. Eve was the same image of perfection. And these perfect people had everything. They were allowed to eat every plant and every fruit from the trees. They personally fellowshipped with God and did His will constantly. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve did not remain that way. She was tempted by Satan and gave in to this temptation. She disobeyed God’s law. She fell out of God’s will by giving into her own. Eve committed the first sin. And Adam was right behind her. And that brought about the curse on everything, including mankind.

God made Adam for holiness and righteousness before the Lord. Sin was never part of the plan. This tells us that it is possible for man to not sin. Obviously not any random man can do this. That is part of the curse. However, since that is the way God intended it from the beginning, it is certainly possible. Enter Jesus, the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:47). God sent Him to the earth to fix what the first Adam had destroyed.

Dose Bones: Part Two by Stewart-Allen Clark

Ezekiel 37:1-10

In the previous article I explained that dose bones of Ezekiel’s vision were the dry bones of discouragement. Discouragement is the devil’s most powerful weapon in drying up a church.

However, I would like to take this one step further: dose bones were dry bones because of the element of sin. Consider the following true story about a chicken farmer. This particular chicken farmer had over 1200 chickens that he kept all year round. Come July all the fans in the chicken house quit, which made it impossible to cool the chickens in the south Florida heat. Come to find out the July heat killed all the chickens, and now the chicken house became more like a chicken funeral home instead! The farmer had to prepare a place for all the soon to be dead chickens—fast! So he took his backhoe and dug a big hole, dumping all the chicken corpses in a mass grave. The days went by after that as usual. However, in time the packed down dirt covering the decomposing chickens started to rise and balloon into what looked like an emerging volcano. And within a week chicken guts and bones were exploding like grenades all across the barnyard! The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers that unattended sin in the church would act just like this. In I Corinthians 5:6 he says, ” … Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?”

Through the vision of Ezekiel 37, God wants Israel to recognize their spiritual condition, and see the reasons why they became “bone yard worthy.” They knew better than to sin. Their bad history should have taught them this by now! Bible readers know that hundreds of years before this event, God gave the Israelites both a warning and a promise about sin in Deuteronomy 30:16-18. It reads:

“If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them. I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long on the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.”

Ezekiel’s vision took place 400 years after the rededication of the people amidst the raising of Solomon’s Temple. Over those 400 years God’s people became spiritually dried up, choosing death over life. We see the aftereffects of Ezekiel’s vision in The Valley of Dry Bones. In the Old Testament, Israel was a nation of people who once brought great glory to God, who had dreams and aspirations in God. Today there are churches all across the world that once brought great glory to God, who once had dreams and aspirations, but are spiritually dried up. Like the inhabitants of Ezekiel’s envisioned wasteland, dose bones are dry bones because of sin!

Emphasizing God’s Word: Part Seven

God will surely punish those who do not receive His Son. Jesus died for our sins to make redemption possible. Because of Him, we are now free from the power of death. His death was a really, really bad thing that had to happen in order for a really, really good thing to happen. Now there is no reason for us to face eternal wrath. All we need to do is accept Jesus to be reunited with His Father. In the last days Jesus will return for us. We have no idea when that will be. It will be when we least expect it. The Old Testament prophets were not the only ones who spoke of the Day of the Lord. This translated into the New Testament.

God will surely punish those who do not receive His Son. Jesus died for our sins to make redemption possible. Because of Him, we are now free from the power of death. His death was a really, really bad thing that had to happen in order for a really, really good thing to happen. Now there is no reason for us to face eternal wrath. All we need to do is accept Jesus to be reunited with His Father. In the last days Jesus will return for us. We have no idea when that will be. It will be when we least expect it. Look at 2 Peter 3:10:

But the day of Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass

away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat,

and the earth and its works will be burned up.

That’s powerful imagery. That’s powerful emphasis. Let’s rejoice in this. Let’s emphasize the message through word and deed. Emphasize the message in whatever ways are most effective. Emphasize it and think about what you are saying. Emphasize, emphasize, emphasize; it matters.

The Impeccability of Christ: Part Three by Jason Carney

Proving Jesus to be God necessitates us realizing His inability to sin. Although Jesus was a union between God and man, He was still fully God and, therefore, He was not capable of sinning. He was and is absolutely holy, exactly like the Father.

As a man Jesus was tempted like every other human being. The Bible details one time in specific that Jesus underwent intense temptation. The temptation of Jesus is the subject in which most critics of Christ’s impeccability have their problems. They might say, “If it was not possible for Jesus to sin, why was He tempted?” After all, James tells us that in temptation we are ”lured and enticed by our own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin…..” (James 1:14-15). This is called depravity. It is the desire to sin that comes from within us. It has no outward drawing. It is a natural bent that we have inherited from Adam (Romans 5:19). So if Jesus had this desire, why did it not conceive? Many might say that it was not a true temptation if there was no possibility of “conception.” This is not true. His impeccability in no way takes away from or belittles His temptation. The writer of Hebrews is not lying when he says, “Jesus was tempted in every way like we are.” That is a clear teaching of the Bible that we must never overlook.

Matthew 4 records arguably the best gospel account of the temptation of Christ. It is important to note that the event recorded in this book is mentioned in three of the gospel accounts. Two, Matthew and Luke, describe this event in detail. There is no way around the fact that Jesus was tempted in whole.

After forty days in the desert with absolutely no food, it would be impossible for any human not to be starving. This is exactly where we see Jesus during His temptation. Unlike Adam who was tempted in the setting of a lush garden, Jesus was tempted in the middle of a barren desert. He is surely tired and definitely starving. Satan now has plenty of practice and experience by the time Jesus comes

Jesus responds to every temptation from Satan with the Word of the Lord. Even when Satan tries to use God’s Word to his own advantage, Jesus quickly calls him out in his misuse. In the worst situation ever, Jesus stands firm against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11). He resists the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life in a matter of what appears to be minutes.  One thing is abundantly clear: Jesus was not like us.

The Barry Sanders Christian: Playing the Game With More Grace and Less Pride by Shawn Richards

Do you ever feel like you’re Barry Sanders playing the Detroit Lions? In other words, do you ever feel like you’re the only person who has it all together? Maybe you’re the only Christian in your workplace or public school and surrounded by immorality. Or maybe you work in a Christian environment or go to a Christian school but feel like you’re the only one who cares about your Savior. Being in these situations can often make you feel like everyone else gets to do whatever they want and get away with it. But at the same time they all know you have it together and their waiting for you to fail. You want so bad to scream or let somebody have it, but the moment you do you know your entire reputation is blemished.

In high school my classmates really wanted to hear me cuss. They would do everything they could to get me to just say one cuss word to prove to themselves that I wasn’t perfect. The truth is that I’m not. I have lost count of the number of times I have cussed somebody out in my head. And believe it or not, you’re not perfect either. You’re as much a low down sinner as I am and everyone else in the world.

It’s easy to see the humanity in other people even while overlooking our own. We yell at Joe Shmoe for not doing his job right or Mr. Cool Cat Daddy for being so arrogant and inconsiderate. However, we so often elect to forget all the mistakes we’ve made that inconvenienced others or the times we’ve come across as smug. We know that “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10) but we forget that we’re included in that. C. S. Lewis hits me right in the middle of my pride when he says, “If you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?’ The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity pg. 122)

The fact is that we’ve been called to an overwhelmingly high standard and we fail to meet that standard virtually every day. But God isn’t just trying to frustrate His people who are trying to meet His standard. He is rather demonstrating the beauty of grace by meeting us in our weakness. And the paradoxical beauty in life is that by living a righteous life we will be significantly happier and more satisfied here on earth than those who satisfy their every sinful desire.

Here are some words straight from Scripture to keep in mind next time we feel like a Goodie Two-Shoes Christian: “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26); “Do not say, ‘I’ll pay you back for this wrong!’ Wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you” (Proverbs 20:22); “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:44). “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Here are two things to keep in mind: 1) Things will go much better for us if we don’t lose it when we want to. 2) No man or woman has ever deserved God’s redemption. No one ever will. We are weak, but He is strong.

Considering the Impeccability of Christ: Part Two by Jason Carney

The debate over the issue of Jesus’ impeccability is due to the fact that Jesus Christ has two distinct, but inseparable natures. He is both fully man and fully God. He is the God-man. This subject is worth taking some time to contemplate. Consider these two very biblical facts:

1)      Jesus was fully man. He was born of a woman (Luke 2:7) and therefore had an entirely human body (1 John 1:1). He had a normal life of growth, meaning He progressed from a baby to a child to a teenager to a man (Luke 2:40). A childhood incident when He was 12 is even recorded (Luke 2:42). We know that Jesus became hungry (Luke 4:2, Matthew 21:18), cried when He was sad (John 11:35), became tired from traveling (John 4:6), needed sleep (Luke 8:23), and eventually died (Luke 23:46), was buried (John 19:40-42). In other words, He experienced the exact same things that all humans experience. There is no denying the fact that He was 100% man.

2)      Jesus was fully God. The Bible also tells us that this same Jesus gave sight to the blind (John 9:3-7, Mark 10:52), controlled the weather with His words (Matthew 8:26), walked on water (Mark 6:47-52), restored a withered hand (Mark 3:5), exercised power over demons and cast them out of people (Mark 5:10-13), raised people from the dead (Luke 8:53-55), freely accepted it when people called Him God (Luke 9:20, John 20:28), and, in fact, called Himself God (John 5:18; 10:30, 33) and forgave sins (Luke 5:20). We also have the biblical testimony that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Him (Colossians 1:19), that death couldn’t hold Him (John 20:5-8, 14-17), that He ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9), that we will worship Him in heaven (Revelation 22:3), that He has an eternal kingdom (2 Peter 1:11), that He is coming back again (Revelation 22:7), that He has been given the only name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12), that He is the “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6), that He is “God over all” (Romans 9:5), that He is  God our Savior (Titus 1:3), that He will judge the living and the dead (Acts 10:42, 1Timothy 4:1, 2 Corinthians 5:10), that He is the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 22:16), and that Jesus is separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:26).

In the Incarnation, Yahweh Himself comes to us. We know that Yahweh is absolutely righteous, unable to sin. This trait of God—His holiness—is written all across the Old Testament: Moses calls God majestic in holiness (Exodus 15:11); God tells Moses he has not treated Him as holy (Numbers 20:12); God says that He is so holy that if anyone touches Him, he or she will die (Exodus 19:13); God commands Moses to respect the ground which He, God, has made holy (Exodus 3:5); Uzzah is killed for merely touching the ark of God (2 Samuel 6:7); the seraphim proclaim God “holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3); Habakkuk claims that Yahweh is “of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (1:13). And the man Jesus was this same holy God!

Dose Bones: Part One by Stewart-Allen Clark

Ezekiel 37:1-10

Yep, dose bones look an awful lot like the modern day church. Verse 1-3 says,

“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.”

In the first article in this series I recalled how God dealt with Israel. He deals with the Christians of the modern church in the very same way. I hope you can see the parallel. Picture here the modern day man of God—a  pastor, a teacher, a preacher–walking into the middle of a great valley of dry bones. This is today’s church which is unfortunately full of spiritual skeletons. The Bible says that these bones were not just dry, they were “very dry.” It seems these bones had been subjected to certain elements. An additional result of these adverse elements was that the skin and the “innards” had completely rotted away. What are you saying Preacher man?

Are you a man or woman attending a dead church? Dead churches don’t get that way over night! Neither do bones. The other night I threw a juicy ham bone out the door to my dog. In the morning I found that same bone and it was still juicy. The dry bones of the church have become this way because of the long drying process of discouragement. Let me tell you a little story about “The Devil’s Pawn Shop.” One spooky day a dark hideous creature came into the devil’s pawn shop and says, “Devil, I want to be the number one super villain nemesis of the church, and I would like to buy some weaponry.” The devil gives him a tour and starts to show him his arsenal of wicked weapons. Under the glass there’s the .22 ca of doubt, the .38 ca of unfaithfulness, the .45 ca of conflict and the .50 ca of stinginess. As this sinister being sees all this luscious weaponry he begins to drool and starts praising the devil saying, “What wonderful and powerful tools you have to stop the work of the church, but I only have enough blood money for one today. So tell me devil, if you were me, which one would give me the most bang of devastation for my buck?” The devil reaches way in under the glass counter, and pulls out a hidden weapon under lock and key, with a tag on it written, “The Bazooka of DISCOURAGEMENT.” The devil say the name in a smooth voice as he continues to caress his most precious weapon. He says, “By this weapon alone I’ve made preachers quit before they were done. By this weapon I’ve run many off from the church. By this weapon people stopped giving, quit serving and turned from tithing! I’m telling you brother, if discouragement was the only weapon you ever had, you would accomplish more with that weapon than all the others combined in the devil’s pawn shop.”

Who ever said that the devil doesn’t tell the truth? He’s telling the God’s honest truth right here! The truth is that if the devil can get a church full of people discouraged, it won’t be full very long! Because when the church is discouraged we won’t pray. We say, “What for? God doesn’t hear us!” We won’t read our Bibles. “We say, “What for? God doesn’t ever speak to us!” We won’t tithe. We say, “What for? God keeps us broke all the time!” We won’t listen to the preacher. We say, “He has no idea what it’s like to be me!” We won’t come to church. We say, “We don’t get anything out of it!” We won’t fellowship. We say, “What for they don’t care if I’m there or not!” According to recent statistics given by Barna Research they say that on average 200 pastors quit the ministry every month, and 3000 churches close every year because of discouragement. And God said to Ezekiel and He stills says to the church today, “DOSE BONES DRY BONES BECAUSE OF DISCOURAGEMENT!

Considering the Impeccability of Christ: Part One by Jason Carney

I have always believed that it was not possible for Jesus Christ to commit sin. Still do. However, I have not always recognized the vast mystery and complexity that surrounds the subject. After discussions on the impeccability of Christ with my professor, my wife, a close pastor friend, and numerous other fellow believers I have concluded that there is indeed a serious dilemma, even mystery, if you will, about this question. The primary question regarding this subject: “Was it possible for Jesus to sin?”  This is the question that will I will address while taking stance that Jesus was indeed impeccable—or incapable of committing sin.

There are so many people with strong views on the subject that anyone who dares to make an argument either way should be able to both logically and biblically support that argument. There are many components that support this idea that Jesus could not possibly have committed a sin. However, there are three main biblical truths that say much about the impeccability of Jesus: The incarnation of Jesus, the temptation of Jesus, and the doctrine of the second Adam. All of these elements have solid biblical evidence as truth. I will carefully explore all three aspects through the next several posts.

The Incarnation is a basic, key belief of all Christians. The Incarnation is the period of time in history in which God “dwelt among us” as a human being (John 1:14). It was at this time that Jesus made the Father known (John 1:18, 14:7). Even though He was before Abraham (John 8:58), He came to display “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus’ divine nature is not limited to these areas or even to these books. A great deal of Scripture refers to Jesus as being fully God.

That being said, the Gospel of John may be the most powerful testimony on the subject. The entire book is richly saturated with the truth that Jesus is not only man, but also God. That stated purpose of the book is that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have eternal life in his name” (John 20:31). The whole point of John’s gospel is to show us that Jesus is God in the flesh and that by believing on Him we may “have eternal life.”

Relearning to Rest by Jason Taylor

For me, rest these days is much more than sleep.  The older I get the busier I get. Besides all of the personal priorities to keep me busy, there are the endless meetings and the multiple church services I hold every week. All this has taught me something I forgot. I have had to relearn what it means to really rest in God.

Here is something I have had to relearn about resting in Him:  I AM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST

Don’t believe me? Check this out:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  II Corinthians 5:21

By trusting in His righteousness and not my own, I start to really enjoy rest in God.  But for me, rest does not come easy for several primary reasons:

1.)    I SOMETIMES CARE MORE ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT ME THAN WHAT GOD THINKS

2.)    I DO NOT LISTEN TO MY LIMITATIONS AND TRY TO HELP EVERYONE OUT OF THEIR PROBLEMS

3.)    I PUT MY MINISTRY BEFORE MY FAMILY AND LEAVE THE LEFTOVERS FOR THEM

All of these reasons and more cause my life to sometimes be full of burnout, depression, and discouragement. When these symptoms set in, I am not resting in the righteousness of God, but in my own self righteousness which always leads me to defeat.

The remedy comes in daily resting in the righteousness of God. I must realize that God is already pleased with me because of my faith in His Son, Jesus, not because of my good works.  When I rest, I start to love more. I love others as God loves them. My family thrives. My health rejuvenates, and my heart is full because I take the time to rest. This relearning to rest thing is a daily process. The rewards of this practice are great! Never stop relearning to rest in God.