A Dry Bone In The Hand Of God

Wherever you are, prison doors can't hold your people any longer, blinded eyes can't stop us from seeing a way forward, wounded hearts can't drag our faces down in failure and sorrow anymore. God, our poverty, our own poverty can't keep us because the treasure of heaven through Christ now belongs to your people. So thank you, Lord God, for what you're doing. Thank you, God, for this end time spiritual awakening. Thank you, Lord, for the promise of pouring out your spirit on your sons and daughters, on old people and young people, my God, and servants and handmaidens. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. There's going to be a shout of praise to you in the earth in these last days. God, we give you the praise. We give you all of the glory, Lord, for doing what only you can do. Thine is the kingdom. Thine is the power. Thine is the glory now and forever. Amen and amen and amen. Praise God. Thank you so much. You may be seated here in the sanctuary and I assume you're already seated, those of us who've joined us online and are at home. And we're going to be taking communion this evening, so after I share for a few moments and we pray again, then we're going to come to the communion table. So just get whatever is available to you. If you have some crackers or bread, any kind of juice, they're just emblems, they're just symbols of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross so that we might have forgiveness and as the Bible promises, life and life more abundantly. Now I want to talk this evening for a few moments about a dry bone in the hand of God. But before I do, I want to just read some prayer requests and give you an example of who I'm actually speaking to tonight, who I feel the Holy Spirit's put this message on my heart for. From Florida, Christopher, simply put, I ask for prayer to fight against homelessness, rage, brutality, and poverty that I face daily. Somebody in the U.S. called Chilo, I need prayer that God will heal me from my backslidden ways and God will restore my wife and my children. From Kentucky, I've been deeply affected and transformed by depression for the past 10 years in a negative way, to say the least, please pray. Indiana, I'm asking for prayer from my family for deliverance from anxiety, fear, and oppression of the mind. I know it is the enemy and I am praying for a breakthrough. And Judy, we're praying with you as well tonight. We're going to believe God for you. From Alaska, I pray to be freed from drinking wine or any form of alcohol. So many people within the church are drinking wine and many are addicted. From New York, hi, my wonderful brothers and sisters, I'm asking for prayer for strength. I'm homeless yet saved. At the age of 74, I'm sleeping under a bridge in Miami. And I'm assuming, Daniel, you're on your cell phone with us and we're going to believe God for you, Daniel. And I'm going to tell you tonight, the Lord's going to provide for you. You trust Him. From New York, pray that God would deliver me from anxiety and depression. I feel like I'm in a mental prison. From Texas, pray that God will heal of anxiety, depression, and panic attacks, unable to work. From New Zealand, pray for me to stay delivered from fear so that I stop having food reactions, hair loss, weight loss, and insomnia. I want to be free in Jesus' name. From Alaska, pray that I won't go homeless. From Dover in the U.S., I have so much fear and anxiety. I'm trying to just trust Jesus, but I'm so scared. Pray for peace in my heart. From Michigan, again, or Minnesota, rather, plea for healing. God's peace and love to fill me. I'm physically and mentally worn down. I am drowning. From the Bronx, I need prayer. I'm saved, but I feel lost. I have no victory, no joy. I'm just miserable. Again, from the last two, from Canada, pray for healing from my depression and burnout. Pray that God would fill me with the Spirit, strength, and wisdom. And from Sao Paulo, Brazil, please pray for my wife, my life, rather. I need hope and help. I need it to arrive soon. Maria, Luisa, we're gonna pray for you and believe God for you tonight. And I know that as people online are reading these prayer requests, not only this evening, but for many days to come, people will see this, your prayer request, on itstimetopray.org website, and they will indicate and continue to pray for you. Judges chapter 15, if you'll go there, please. Judges, right after the book of Joshua, is Judges chapter 15. I want to speak about a dry bone in the hand of God. Father, thank you, God, for your Word. We recognize tonight that your Word has the power to give life. Your Word has the power to set free. Your Word has the power to divide the seas. Your Word can calm the storm. Your Word can create a universe. Your Word can raise the dead. There's nothing that your Word can't do. Tonight, we just want to say, Lord, we choose to believe you. We choose to believe your Word, that in spite of our circumstances, and even if we have been unfaithful, you remain faithful. Your Word tells us that if our own hearts condemn us, that you are greater than our heart. You cannot deny yourself. So, Lord, tonight we're asking God for the healing that you promised to give us when we call out to you. We thank you, Lord, that we're asking you to just do what, by your nature, you do. Wherever you are, there's life. The miraculous happens. Healings happen. Weakness is turned to strength, and confusion is brought into order. So, Lord, we thank you for what you're going to do this evening through the simple sharing of your Word in Jesus' name. Amen. Judges chapter 15, beginning at verse 14. When he came to Lahi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Now, this is a man called Samson, anointed by the Spirit of God, raised up by God to bring deliverance to the people of God and the testimony of God of his generation. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. That's what happens when the Spirit of God comes on you. No matter how much the devil has tried to tie you up, or tie up your mind, or tie up your thinking, when God's Holy Spirit comes on you, these bondages of the evil one, may I put it that way, just become like wax in the fire. They just melt in the presence of a holy God. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said, with the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men. And so it was, when he'd finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand and called the place Ramathlehi. And he became very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, you've given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant, and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, that means in the hollow of that particular jawbone, and water came out, and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name on Hachori, which is in Lehi to this day. So this is an amazing story of the Spirit of God coming upon a man, the hand of God in a sense, reaching out through the hand of a man and picking up something that nobody would ever consider could be a weapon used to any degree in the kingdom of God. Now that's the way many of us feel from time to time. We look at ourselves, we look at our circumstance, we think about our parentage, we look in the mirror in the morning, and quite often many of us feel or have felt just like that donkey I suppose before he died must have felt. Now I suppose that a donkey could think, I'm only just drawing an illustration, but donkeys don't think very well, I know that I had one one time on the farm. But suppose he could think, and the donkey would say for example, well I'm not tall like other people are, I can't run a race, there's so many pretty horses around me, and they seem to be so fast, and everybody seems to want them, they're all in demand. And sometimes we have a tendency to look at people around us, in the church world for example, and we say, wow, well he's fast and she's good. And the donkey could say, my ears are too big, they're not nice and sleek like the horse's ears are, I don't have a good voice, a horse has a very nice neigh, and I just have a bray, and nobody likes it, it's not very good sounding, I can't sing in other words, I don't have any skills, I don't have any talents, my legs are too short, I can't run, nobody wants to hitch me up to a chariot, nobody's interested in using my life, and the horses around me have such nice sleek coats, their owners brush them down, and they shine in the sun, and they come in all different colors, some of them even multicolored. And I'm just this kind of muddy brown color, nobody brushes me, my fur is like, my hair is like bristle brushes, the horses have a nice long mane, a nice flowing mane, and I just have this kind of scrub brush thing on the back of my neck, and they have a nice long flowing tail, and I have just this, looks like a wire brush that's stuck to my tailbone, on the back part of me, and and the donkey could could just get depressed, and say how could my life ever be used to bring about any glory to God, or any glory in the kingdom of God, and and he literally died that way, that's that's what happened to this particular donkey, he just died, and to the point where all that was left was a jawbone, and it was still moist, so that means it was a recent departure in a sense, you know, and a lot of people have come to the conclusion in our generation that with the multitude of obstacles that are in front of us, and the numbers of people that God could use for his glory, why would he ever choose me, why would he ever use my life, I'm not sleek, I'm not fast, I'm not good-looking, I haven't got a good voice, I'm not a good speaker, remember Moses in Genesis when the Lord came to him, and he said I'm not eloquent of speech, in other words, I can't, you're sending me before Pharaoh, and I stutter really is what he meant, I've lost my power of speech, and God's response to Moses was who is it that made man's mouth, who are you telling that I can't use you, you see this is the problem that we all face, we somehow arrive at a conclusion about ourselves, and somehow we think that God agrees with our conclusion about ourselves, that somehow we're just not usable for his kingdom, and so we inwardly die, and all that is left is this little part of us, and that's all that was left of this donkey, is this little piece of a jawbone in the dust, and it laid there, and was doomed in a sense in some measure to spend the rest of its time on earth there, until one day a hand anointed by the Spirit of God picked it up, and suddenly this donkey that felt it had no use or significance for the kingdom of God is in the battle of his life, and Philistines are falling everywhere, the Philistines represent these, it said they shouted against the people of God, they shouted against the testimony of God, and the Philistine shouts always been the same, you will serve us, you will bend to us, we will not serve you, you will serve us, you will adhere to our social view, whatever it is, you will bend your knee to us, and suddenly this jawbone, that's all that's left is a jawbone of a donkey, it's in the hand of a man anointed by God, and he's just suddenly enthrust in the middle of the battle, it would be like you and I suddenly used of God in a way that we never anticipated we would be used of God, and we're watching enemies of God fall on the right and on the left, and there's marvelous victory being won, and because this jawbone is in the hand in a sense of God through an anointed vessel, the reality is you and I don't have the right to tell God what he can or can't do through any of our lives, we're not given that right, we are not God, he did not abdicate the throne and invite you and I to sit there and say now you tell me what I can do with your life and through your life, and that's the reality, it's not Paul the Apostle said have you considered your calling brother, not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise, not many who are naturally strong are chosen by God, but God has chosen the weak things of the world, and the foolish things of the world, and the things that are not to bring to nothing things that are, as a matter of fact it says in the Word of God in 1st Corinthians that even chooses those things that are despised, as a matter of fact not necessarily by others, but those who maybe are despised in their own sight, they hate what they see when they look in the mirror, they hate what they read when they look at their resume, and they don't like what they are, they don't see, we don't see ourselves as of any value to the kingdom of God, see that's who I'm speaking to tonight, it's it's the people online that you, you bought a lie about God, not necessarily about yourself, you bought a lie about God, you might be all the things that you think you are, but you've forgotten who God is, you've forgotten what God can do, you've forgotten the fact that he's not glorified by our strength, he's not glorified by the majesty of our voices, or how fast we can run, or how much we know, or how much scripture we can quote, he's not glorified by that, he's glorified when a simple, weak, ordinary vessel like you or me just says, here I am Lord, send me, use my life for your glory, and suddenly the hand of God picks us up, we find ourselves in places we could never go in our own strength, doing things we could never do, speaking things we never even thought of speaking, in a manner that is another's heart actually beating through us, and another's voice speaking through us, it's absolutely amazing what God can do, and this is where we are today, we live in a church age of donkey jaw bones laying in the dust everywhere, we live in the church age of people who've just lost all confidence, they've lost all heart, they feel so down, so dry, so useless, they don't feel like they can contribute anything, they can't even get out of the dust, let alone contribute anything to the kingdom of God, or stand in any measure against this onslaught of evil that's come against society and our generation, but have you considered that you are the very vessel that God wants to reach down and pick up again? Because I know one thing, you'll give God the glory, that donkey will not be pointing to himself, his jaw bone is all that's left of him, and I'll tell you, God can take your voice, and God can take your jaw, and he can begin to speak through you, and do things and say things you never thought were possible in your lifetime, and so this great victory was won, and Samson said this, he said, with the jaw bone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps with the jaw bone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men. Then he took the jaw bone, it says, when he had finished speaking, and he threw it from his hand, and he just threw it into the dust, and that speaks to me of the kind of a person that says, well, God used me once, long, long time ago for a very short season, and really the victory was marvelous, but I felt I've been cast away, I don't think I'm of any value anymore. But the same warrior Samson began to be very, very tired and very, very thirsty, and he said, now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands, in the sense of the enemies of God, I'm tired, I'm weary. So what God did is he split the hollow place that was in this particular jaw bone that had just come out of the hand of Samson, and water started pouring out of it, and so Samson reaches down a second time, picks up that jaw bone, and he begins to drink, and I think it was pure, it was clean, it was cool. You see, we're never finished in the kingdom of God. When we get too old to fight, we can still encourage somebody else who's still in the battle. Hallelujah. We can still be used to give a cup of cold water to somebody who's fighting for their family, and fighting for the glory of God in this generation. We can still be that vessel. There's no restriction by age in the kingdom of God. And so nobody has the right to say, God can't use me anymore. He used me once upon a time, but he can't use me anymore. I remind you tonight, it was at the time when Moses had come to the end of himself, when he was no longer strong, he no longer had access to an army, he didn't have political influence any longer, he didn't have a whole lot of money, just a bunch of sheep in the backside of the desert. He no longer had a sword in his hand, he had only a stick in his hand. It was at that point that he became the mighty deliverer that God needed to bring his own people out of bondage. The Scripture cries out to the weak. The Scripture cries out to those who have fallen into the dust. In the days of Ezekiel, God took Ezekiel into a valley and it was full of bones. And if you read it in context, this is the house of Israel, and they'd actually died around their altars. They died in a place of worship that was short of the true revelation of God. And they were just bones in the dust. And God said to the prophet Ezekiel, can these bones live? Ezekiel says, God, you know whether they can or they can't live. And the Lord told him, he said, call to the Ruach, call to the breath of God, call to the spirit of God, because God and his power can raise up even out of the dust. Those things that think they have no life, they have no power, they have no purpose. And the Bible says that they stood up and they became an exceeding army. And I am believing with all my heart in this last generation that people like you and I are going to become this exceeding great army of God in the earth. God is going to...we're not just going to sing about it, we're going to live it. We're not just going to talk about it, we're going to live it. We're not just going to wish for it, we're going to live it. God's spirit is going to come upon us, God's hand is going to lift us up, and we're going to start speaking about him and standing against darkness in a way that we never thought any of us ever could. Hallelujah. In the last days, I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and handmaidens, I will pour out of my spirit in those days. Thank God. I honestly thank God with all my heart that we have come to the place where we know it has to be God. In America, we have been just so full of plans for so long and it has left our nation bankrupt. And now, it's time for the donkey jawbones again to be raised up by God and to do something for the kingdom of God that only God can do for his own glory through us. And so, as we come to the communion table tonight, this is my prayer for you, that you say, God, I am, I am that dry bone in the dust, but I am open to you reaching down and picking me up and using my life for your glory. That's all that's required on your part. Don't resist the hand of God. Don't resist the mercy of God. Don't resist the grace of God. Let God be God in your life. Let him do what he wants to do through you. Not in your strength, but rather in your weakness. Not in your everything, but rather in your nothingness. Not having done a lot of things right, or maybe in some cases, having done anything right. Let him take you now. You see, your message will be about him now, not about you. There'll be no methodology, no seven steps to anything. It will be just this one thing, I was dead, and now I live. I was dry, and God filled me with living water. I had no particular use that I saw from my life, and God used me in a way that I could only ever dream or imagine that he ever could. As a matter of fact, as the scripture says, he did more for me that I could even think or imagine. We're going to come to the communion table, and I'm asking you to get the bread or the crackers and the juice that represents Jesus Christ going to a cross to pay the penalty for our sin, so that we might be restored again in relationship to God. So that God, by his Holy Spirit, could indwell us and be God in us, be God to us, and be God through us. Jesus said, I came to give you life, and I came to give it to you more abundantly. Richer, fuller, deeper life than you can even imagine that you could ever have in this world. I came to give you a purpose if you've lost your purpose. I came to give you vision if you can't see anything but your own struggles and your own trials right now. I came to give you living water for others when maybe the end of your hope was concerned about your own health. I came to do something for you that only I can do. And so, Father, we thank you tonight that as we prepare to come to this communion table this evening, Lord Jesus Christ, that your sacrifice for me and for others won't have been in vain. I pray, God, that we would go the full distance now with you as your church. And, Lord, we just love you. We love you for the fact that you're not asking us to be strong. You're not asking us to do anything but to let you do what you do through us. God, it's amazing. I'm astounded. I'm stunned. I see it. I see it now. I knew it once, but I see it now. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you, God. You waited till Lazarus was dead to raise him. You waited till the widow was taking her son out of the city to bring him back to life. You waited till the leprosy was eating that man's full hope until you touched him, God. You do all things well. And we remember their stories and their testimonies. And so, God, raise us up. Raise up your church in this last hour. Raise us up again in your house and give us a song and a testimony and give us power. Give us living water. Give us God. Break us out of the bonds of all the religious weakness that we've crafted in your name and bring us back into the place of your strength. Oh, God, glorify your name again, Lord Jesus Christ. Glorify your name in the earth. God, may there be a shout of praise to you, Lord, from every language, every culture, every kindred, every tribe, every town, every city, every country, every place. Let there be a shout of glory to you in this last day before you take us home. And give us the privilege, Lord, of bringing a multitude into your kingdom. Because of our story, we were dead and now we live. We were blind and now we see. We couldn't get up and you gave us strength. We were nothing and you became everything to us. This is what the communion table means tonight. I'll be back in just a moment and we'll share communion.