Ezekiel 37:7,8 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

Here we see a true descendant of Abraham, who against hope believed in hope. He simply did as he was commanded. He bid the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and the promise then was the same as it now is, they that hear shall live. But what astonishment must have taken possession of the Prophet's mind, when he saw the shaking of the bones, and heard the noise, and found the principle of reviving come upon them! Reader! and is not this uniformly the case, whenever at any time the Lord sends his servants, the ministers of the Gospel to call sinners that are by nature dead in trespasses and sins, to a new and spiritual life in Christ Jesus. Every faithful servant of the Lord, may on this occasion, as Peter did on the healing of the cripple, at the gate of the temple, when disclaiming all merit from such an act of power, he referred all into the glory of his adorable Master: why marvel ye at this, or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk; the God of our fathers had glorified his Son Jesus. Acts 3:12-13. Reader! do further observe, amidst the effects of the Prophet's preaching: though there was a noise and shaking, and bone came together to bone, and sinews and flesh; yet there was no breath in them. And what do we learn from hence, but that after all man's preaching, except God the Holy Ghost, by his spiritual influence puts life in the soul; there is nothing effectually done to a work of saving grace. Sinners may shake under the word, human strength, like the sinews and the flesh, may make a stir; but the quickening power in the new birth of the soul; this is wholly of God. Ye must be born again, at once shows, where grace alone is, and from whom alone it comes. Reader! what saith your experience to this statement? I do not ask you what preaching you sit under, or what sermons cause a shaking in your soul. But I would very seriously desire you to ask the question from your own heart; (and oh! that the Lord may by his teaching enable you to give an answer of peace;) are you born again? Have you known that blessedness of having part in the first resurrection, on whom the second death hath no power. Revelation 20:6.