Bringing The Dead To Life Ezek 37
Series: Easter Season - Old Testament Sermons
April 27, 2025
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
Quasimodogeniti, The Second Sunday Of Easter 27-April-2025 Sermon Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14 Sermon Theme: “Bringing The Dead To Life!” I. Jesus Reclaims Us From Death Through His Word Preached! (Vs.1-8) II. The Holy Spirit Fills Our Lungs With Life Through Forgiveness Spoken!(vs.9-11). III. The Father Welcomes Us Home To The Land of The Living! (Vs.12-14). by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
Episode Notes
Quasimodogeniti, The Second Sunday Of Easter 27-April-2025
Sermon Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Sermon Theme: “Bringing The Dead To Life!” I. Jesus Reclaims Us From Death Through His Word Preached! (Vs.1-8) II. The Holy Spirit Fills Our Lungs With Life Through Forgiveness Spoken!(vs.9-11). III. The Father Welcomes Us Home To The Land of The Living! (Vs.12-14). by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”... “Like newborn infants! Alleluia! Long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word. Alleluia!” “Quasimodogeniti” - Latin for “Like newborn infants.” Here we are a bunch of babies on a Sunday nicknamed, “Low Sunday.” “Low Sunday” because last week we had two services, special music, breakfast, members and visitors came into our sanctuary. But this Sunday it is only the faithful few hungry babies returning to drink deeply of the pure spiritual milk of the Word from the breast of Christ’s Bride, our Mother - the Church.
Still it is Easter again! Every Sunday the Christian Church celebrates the 8th day of creation! Today again is the first day of the new creation. Our Crucified Risen Lord Jesus is present here as we gather behind closed doors. He speaks “Peace” “I forgive you all your sins!” God the Holy Spirit breathes faith into our ears by the message of Christ. God the Father welcomes us Home as sons and daughters of the King.
Learn well the distinction between salvation won and salvation applied. God the Holy Spirit teaches, Heb 9:27-28 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, (28) so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” Salvation for us sinners was won once and for all by Jesus on the cross on Calvary. He was offered once paying the full debt of all our sin. He took up His life three days later to declare us forgiven. You will not find salvation traveling to Jerusalem and kneeling at the place of His crucifixion or praying at His empty tomb. Salvation isn’t found in the wood of the cross. Salvation is applied through the means of grace by the Holy Spirit within Christ’s Church. Salvation is applied in baptism of infants and adults. Salvation is applied in words fo forgiveness - absolution spoken. Salvation is applied in the Gospel preached. Salvation is applied in bread and wine administered according to Jesus’ Word placing His living flesh and blood upon our tongues.
Newborn babies rejoice! Our Triune God is present in Christ’s Church today - the 8th day! He alone is “Bringing The Dead To Life!” I. Jesus Reclaims Us From Death Through His Word Preached! (Vs.1-8) II. The Holy Spirit Fills Our Lungs With Life Through Forgiveness Spoken!(vs.9-11). III. The Father Welcomes Us Home To The Land of The Living! (Vs.12-14).
I. “Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!” lamented the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel a priest of the tribe of Levi, was called to be God’s prophet to the first batch of Babylonian exiles in 593B.C.. In 722B.C. the Assyrian armies had destroyed the northern ten tribes called Israel. The southern kingdom of Judah didn’t heed the warning and repent. The Lord God raised up the Babylonians to discipline the remnant of Abraham’s descendants by bringing them into captivity. In 598 B.C. the Babylonians conquered Judah and took 10,000 of it best and brightest citizens into exile. False prophets arose among the captives in Babylon that soon they’d return to Jerusalem. Ezekiel preaches in Babylon, as did Jeremiah in Jerusalem, that the exile would last decades - seven to be exact. The people were to settle where the Lord had led them, build houses, plant fields, and repent of their idolatry that led them into captivity.
In a vision Ezekiel is taken back to Jerusalem to see the pagan practices of the priests in the Temple. He sees the Lord God leaving His Temple and handing it over to destruction, for His people had forsaken His Word. In 586 B.C. Jerusalem would be burned, the Temple leveled to the ground, and all but the poorest of the land exiled nearly 900 miles away to Babylon - modern Iraq and Iran.
Idolatry destroys people, families, communities, and nations. What does it mean to have a god? What do you fear? What do you love? What do you trust in above all things? This is your god. As we confess: “A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. 3 If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.”(L.C. 1st Cmdt). Man made gods - idols - rob us of our humanity. We justify inhumane actions worshiping idols of self, autonomy, money, our wisdom, our ways, our feelings.
What is the truth? What is the spiritual reality of all men conceived of a human father and born of their mother since the day of Adam’s rebellion? (Vs.1-2) “Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” David the sinner honestly confesses. We are dead dry bones spiritually. The Holy Spirit testifies through Paul, Eph 2:1-3 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, (2) in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, (3) among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” We were dead - dead. Bones without any spiritual marrow. Torn limb from limb - left to decay without a proper burial.
Can these bones live? Can us inhuman scattered skeletons be made human again? Can your shattered dried up life of sin, of idolatry of self - be made new? Can you really be made human again? (Vs.3) The Creator of all things knows! He seeks to rescue His lost, rebellious, dead, inhumane creatures - me - and you!
How? (Vs.4-6) Psa 33:6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” The eternally begotten Son of God became our flesh and blood Brother by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary to make us fully human again. Jesus is the True Man - the Second Adam. He makes us human again - through His Word preached! History records, Mar 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, (15) and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." And again, Mar 1:35-39 Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. (36) And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. (37) When they found Him, they said to Him, "Everyone is looking for You." (38) But He said to them, "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth." (39) And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.”
Christ Jesus’ Word preached makes us dried dead spiritual skeletons human again! (Vs.7-8) Jesus’ Word reassembles and impresses us into His image as it is preached to us. The longer you stay away from the hearing of Jesus’ Word preached - spiritual deadness invades - your life reverts to a pile of lifeless dead dry bones! Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe! Jesus preaches, Joh 5:24 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
II. Ezekiel has preached. The dead dry bones are reassembled and clothed with flesh from above. They are made human again, but they aren’t breathing - there still is no life in them! Are you breathing? Parents buy a booty to put on their newborn infants immediately alerting them if their breathing stops. They know without breath there is no life.
We need to breath deeply and regularly spiritually! (Vs. 9-10) Ezekiel prophesies and the Spirit, the Breath, the Lord and Giver of Life fills them with new Easter life! Our minds flash back to the sixth 24 day of the existence of all things about six millennia ago. The Triune God carefully molded our father Adam from the clay. Then stooping down His Son touched man breathing the Holy Spirit into our lungs that we might be made living creatures in His image!
The first Adam surrendered the image of God for Satan’s lie. Sin turned us away from our Creator and His life sustaining Word. Sin traps us in the idolatry of self, chains us with fear of death, hell, and spiritual lies that we are our own redeemers. The lie is death. The second Adam - Jesus - is God in our skin - He lays down His life on Calvary to recreate us forgiving all our sins. Now Jesus is here! He speaks His Word, “Peace” breathing us alive again by His Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of our sins. In this Church, God the Holy Spirit, daily and richly forgives you all your sins - and the sins of all believers.
He fills our lungs with life through cross won - empty tomb certified forgiveness of sins spoken!(vs.11-12) Sunday after Sunday - God the Holy Spirit fills our lungs with new life - a life of peace - we are forgiven! Remade by Jesus’ flesh and blood to be fully human! Refreshed by the Holy Spirit’s breath of new Easter life in forgiveness spoken, poured, preached, and fed us. We are gathered from death to life in the True Israel -The Real Jerusalem - the Holy Christian Church!
III. Rejoice! Hear your Brother Jesus risen from the grave bearing the marks of your salvation in His living flesh: Joh 20:17 Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.' In Jesus by His Holy Spirit God is now “your” Father - He is fully “your” God! He is for you! Who can be against you? This Christ - centered Holy Spirit Word sustained faith is the victory that overcomes our dying world!
Hear the Father’s promise to you by His Spirit through His Son! (Vs.13-14) David sang, Psa 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?..Death may separate us from our family...but it is only temporary...Psa 27:13-14 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. (14) Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
God the Father has put His Spirit in you. He recreates you in His only begotten Son - your Brother Jesus to be His own to live in His Kingdom of life. We confess with the Apostle:2Co 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (18) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” We are the dead brought to life in Jesus by the Holy Spirit daily and richly in the Church as the Father welcomes us Home! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Amen
Sermon Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Sermon Theme: “Bringing The Dead To Life!” I. Jesus Reclaims Us From Death Through His Word Preached! (Vs.1-8) II. The Holy Spirit Fills Our Lungs With Life Through Forgiveness Spoken!(vs.9-11). III. The Father Welcomes Us Home To The Land of The Living! (Vs.12-14). by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”... “Like newborn infants! Alleluia! Long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word. Alleluia!” “Quasimodogeniti” - Latin for “Like newborn infants.” Here we are a bunch of babies on a Sunday nicknamed, “Low Sunday.” “Low Sunday” because last week we had two services, special music, breakfast, members and visitors came into our sanctuary. But this Sunday it is only the faithful few hungry babies returning to drink deeply of the pure spiritual milk of the Word from the breast of Christ’s Bride, our Mother - the Church.
Still it is Easter again! Every Sunday the Christian Church celebrates the 8th day of creation! Today again is the first day of the new creation. Our Crucified Risen Lord Jesus is present here as we gather behind closed doors. He speaks “Peace” “I forgive you all your sins!” God the Holy Spirit breathes faith into our ears by the message of Christ. God the Father welcomes us Home as sons and daughters of the King.
Learn well the distinction between salvation won and salvation applied. God the Holy Spirit teaches, Heb 9:27-28 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, (28) so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” Salvation for us sinners was won once and for all by Jesus on the cross on Calvary. He was offered once paying the full debt of all our sin. He took up His life three days later to declare us forgiven. You will not find salvation traveling to Jerusalem and kneeling at the place of His crucifixion or praying at His empty tomb. Salvation isn’t found in the wood of the cross. Salvation is applied through the means of grace by the Holy Spirit within Christ’s Church. Salvation is applied in baptism of infants and adults. Salvation is applied in words fo forgiveness - absolution spoken. Salvation is applied in the Gospel preached. Salvation is applied in bread and wine administered according to Jesus’ Word placing His living flesh and blood upon our tongues.
Newborn babies rejoice! Our Triune God is present in Christ’s Church today - the 8th day! He alone is “Bringing The Dead To Life!” I. Jesus Reclaims Us From Death Through His Word Preached! (Vs.1-8) II. The Holy Spirit Fills Our Lungs With Life Through Forgiveness Spoken!(vs.9-11). III. The Father Welcomes Us Home To The Land of The Living! (Vs.12-14).
I. “Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!” lamented the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel a priest of the tribe of Levi, was called to be God’s prophet to the first batch of Babylonian exiles in 593B.C.. In 722B.C. the Assyrian armies had destroyed the northern ten tribes called Israel. The southern kingdom of Judah didn’t heed the warning and repent. The Lord God raised up the Babylonians to discipline the remnant of Abraham’s descendants by bringing them into captivity. In 598 B.C. the Babylonians conquered Judah and took 10,000 of it best and brightest citizens into exile. False prophets arose among the captives in Babylon that soon they’d return to Jerusalem. Ezekiel preaches in Babylon, as did Jeremiah in Jerusalem, that the exile would last decades - seven to be exact. The people were to settle where the Lord had led them, build houses, plant fields, and repent of their idolatry that led them into captivity.
In a vision Ezekiel is taken back to Jerusalem to see the pagan practices of the priests in the Temple. He sees the Lord God leaving His Temple and handing it over to destruction, for His people had forsaken His Word. In 586 B.C. Jerusalem would be burned, the Temple leveled to the ground, and all but the poorest of the land exiled nearly 900 miles away to Babylon - modern Iraq and Iran.
Idolatry destroys people, families, communities, and nations. What does it mean to have a god? What do you fear? What do you love? What do you trust in above all things? This is your god. As we confess: “A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. 3 If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.”(L.C. 1st Cmdt). Man made gods - idols - rob us of our humanity. We justify inhumane actions worshiping idols of self, autonomy, money, our wisdom, our ways, our feelings.
What is the truth? What is the spiritual reality of all men conceived of a human father and born of their mother since the day of Adam’s rebellion? (Vs.1-2) “Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” David the sinner honestly confesses. We are dead dry bones spiritually. The Holy Spirit testifies through Paul, Eph 2:1-3 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, (2) in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, (3) among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” We were dead - dead. Bones without any spiritual marrow. Torn limb from limb - left to decay without a proper burial.
Can these bones live? Can us inhuman scattered skeletons be made human again? Can your shattered dried up life of sin, of idolatry of self - be made new? Can you really be made human again? (Vs.3) The Creator of all things knows! He seeks to rescue His lost, rebellious, dead, inhumane creatures - me - and you!
How? (Vs.4-6) Psa 33:6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” The eternally begotten Son of God became our flesh and blood Brother by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary to make us fully human again. Jesus is the True Man - the Second Adam. He makes us human again - through His Word preached! History records, Mar 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, (15) and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." And again, Mar 1:35-39 Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. (36) And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. (37) When they found Him, they said to Him, "Everyone is looking for You." (38) But He said to them, "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth." (39) And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.”
Christ Jesus’ Word preached makes us dried dead spiritual skeletons human again! (Vs.7-8) Jesus’ Word reassembles and impresses us into His image as it is preached to us. The longer you stay away from the hearing of Jesus’ Word preached - spiritual deadness invades - your life reverts to a pile of lifeless dead dry bones! Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe! Jesus preaches, Joh 5:24 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
II. Ezekiel has preached. The dead dry bones are reassembled and clothed with flesh from above. They are made human again, but they aren’t breathing - there still is no life in them! Are you breathing? Parents buy a booty to put on their newborn infants immediately alerting them if their breathing stops. They know without breath there is no life.
We need to breath deeply and regularly spiritually! (Vs. 9-10) Ezekiel prophesies and the Spirit, the Breath, the Lord and Giver of Life fills them with new Easter life! Our minds flash back to the sixth 24 day of the existence of all things about six millennia ago. The Triune God carefully molded our father Adam from the clay. Then stooping down His Son touched man breathing the Holy Spirit into our lungs that we might be made living creatures in His image!
The first Adam surrendered the image of God for Satan’s lie. Sin turned us away from our Creator and His life sustaining Word. Sin traps us in the idolatry of self, chains us with fear of death, hell, and spiritual lies that we are our own redeemers. The lie is death. The second Adam - Jesus - is God in our skin - He lays down His life on Calvary to recreate us forgiving all our sins. Now Jesus is here! He speaks His Word, “Peace” breathing us alive again by His Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of our sins. In this Church, God the Holy Spirit, daily and richly forgives you all your sins - and the sins of all believers.
He fills our lungs with life through cross won - empty tomb certified forgiveness of sins spoken!(vs.11-12) Sunday after Sunday - God the Holy Spirit fills our lungs with new life - a life of peace - we are forgiven! Remade by Jesus’ flesh and blood to be fully human! Refreshed by the Holy Spirit’s breath of new Easter life in forgiveness spoken, poured, preached, and fed us. We are gathered from death to life in the True Israel -The Real Jerusalem - the Holy Christian Church!
III. Rejoice! Hear your Brother Jesus risen from the grave bearing the marks of your salvation in His living flesh: Joh 20:17 Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.' In Jesus by His Holy Spirit God is now “your” Father - He is fully “your” God! He is for you! Who can be against you? This Christ - centered Holy Spirit Word sustained faith is the victory that overcomes our dying world!
Hear the Father’s promise to you by His Spirit through His Son! (Vs.13-14) David sang, Psa 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?..Death may separate us from our family...but it is only temporary...Psa 27:13-14 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. (14) Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
God the Father has put His Spirit in you. He recreates you in His only begotten Son - your Brother Jesus to be His own to live in His Kingdom of life. We confess with the Apostle:2Co 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (18) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” We are the dead brought to life in Jesus by the Holy Spirit daily and richly in the Church as the Father welcomes us Home! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Amen
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