Best of, Dry Bones

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Learn more at arnicare.com. That's a-r-n-i-c-a-r-e dot com slash iheart. Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick live podcast where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The resurrection power of Jesus Christ is absolute, transforming and restoring lives, healing hurt, and making all things new. This power set Michael Bowen free from the captivity, darkness, and hell of addiction and delivered him back to God. This is Jesus Breaks the Chains. Hello and thank you for tuning into this podcast, which is a part of the Jesus Breaks the Chains series. I'm evangelist Michael Bowen, and I pray that the Lord blesses you greatly and you receive this word in love and in truth. This podcast is Dry Bones Come Alive, and I really enjoy this message today because we're going to be reading out of the book of Ezekiel and referencing the valley of the dry bones, and I relate to this greatly because in my life at one time, my life was a valley of dry bones when I was addicted to drugs, and I could not stop using them, and my life was devastated and in ruins, and I found myself in prison, and so I really relate to this being somebody who was just lying there in death and in despair, and so I can relate to the valley of dry bones, and I'm very passionate about this message, and I'm just going to speak to you today, and I want you to just open up your hearts and receive this word, and there may be some dryness in your life. You may have some disappointments, some despair, may have lost a loved one, may have walked away from the Lord, may not even know the Lord, and you feel like your life is dry, and what's the point, and what's the purpose, and this message is for you.

Hallelujah. In the book of Ezekiel chapter 37, we're going to start in verse 1 and go through verse 6. The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones. Then he caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and indeed they were very dry, and he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?

So I answered, O Lord, you know. Again he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I ask you right now, what is this breath that they're referring to in this piece of scripture? This breath is the Holy Spirit. This breath is Ruach. In the Tanakh, which is the Hebrew Bible, the word Ruach generally means wind, breath, mind, or spirit. Now there's another definition that I like very much. The basic meaning of Ruach is both wind or breath, but neither is understood as essence, rather it is the power encountered in the breath and the wind.

Did you hear that? It is the power that is in the breath and the wind. The Ruach is the power encountered in the Spirit of God. Hallelujah.

Acts 1 8 says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. In your mind right now, see a picture of a mighty forest standing tall, full of trees, giant, big trees with big branches and leaves. Now see a mighty windstorm blowing through the forest, blowing through the trees and see the wind uprooting and knocking down all the trees and they're falling down, they're coming crashing down and they're being uprooted.

Look at the devastation that it has left in its wake as the storm passed through. Do you see all the trees that were uprooted by the great winds? Now think about this, what was it that knocked down all of those trees? Was it the wind? I say no, it was not the wind. If it wasn't the wind, well then what was it?

It wasn't the wind that knocks down the trees, it is the power in the wind that knocks down the trees. In Ezekiel 37 verse 6 God says, I will put breath in you, I will put my ruach in you, I will put my power in you, then you shall know I am Lord. You will know Jesus is Lord when he puts his spirit in you as he put it in his disciples in the upper room on the day of Pentecost after he promised that he would. Jesus told his disciples to tarry or wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the father that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. I know Jesus is Lord because he put his spirit in me when I surrendered my life to him on a prison chapel floor after being addicted to drugs for 25 years. He put his ruach in me, he put his power in me, he put his Holy Spirit in me, he kept his promise in his word to me and I've been changed. No longer am I a slave to sin and addiction, I'm now a spirit-filled disciple of Jesus Christ and witness to the end of the earth because of the promise God made to me. John 14, 15 through 18 says...