For our Scripture reading this morning, turn with me to Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel 37, we read together the first 14 verses of that chapter. Where we find the story of the valley of dry bones. Ezekiel 37, beginning at verse 1, as we give our attention to the Word of God. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, Son of man, can these bones live? I said, O Sovereign Lord, you alone know. Then he said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, Son of Man, and say to it, This is what the Sovereign Lord says, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet a vast army. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, our bones are dried up and our hope is gone. We are cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, This is what the Sovereign Lord says. O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord. when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put My Spirit in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord. For our confessional reference this morning, turn with me in the back of the Psalter hymnal to page 104. 104 as we continue our consideration of the canons of Dort. For those of you who are visiting with us, we've considered already unconditional election, limited atonement, total depravity. And now this morning we consider, from the third and fourth heads of doctrine, irresistible grace. And the articles that we want to consider this morning to lead us are Articles 8, 11, and 13. Articles 8, 11, and 13. Article 8 says, As many as are called by the Gospel are unfeignedly called. For God has most earnestly and truly declared in His Word what is acceptable to Him, namely, that those who are called should come unto Him. He also seriously promises rest of soul and eternal life to all who come to Him and believe. Article 11, But when God accomplishes His good pleasure in the elect, or works in them through conversion, He not only causes the gospel to be externally preached to them and powerfully illuminates their minds by His Holy Spirit that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, but by the efficacy of the same regenerating Spirit, He pervades the inmost recesses of man. He opens the closed and softens the hardened heart and circumcises that which was uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will which, though heretofore dead, He quickens from being evil, disobedient, and refractory. He renders it good, obedient, and pliable. Actuates and strengthens it, that like a good tree it may bring forth the fruits of good actions. And finally, article 13. The manner of this operation cannot be fully comprehended by believers in this life. Nevertheless, they are satisfied to know and experience that by this grace of God, they are enabled to believe with the heart and to love. their Savior. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we consider this topic this morning, I ask you this question to start. If God decides to do something, can anyone or anything stop Him? Is there anything so powerful that is able to resist the power of God? Boys and girls, Could anyone or anything stop God from creating the heavens and the earth in the beginning? Could anyone stop Him from destroying the world with a flood? Could anyone stop Him from performing His awesome miracles and delivering His people from the bondage of Egypt? Could anyone stop Him from sending His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to live on this earth, to die a cruel death on the cross, to rise again from the dead, to ascend to heaven, and even today to rule on behalf of His people. Could anyone stop Him? You see, both Job and King Nebuchadnezzar came face to face with the question of the power of God and the ability to resist it. And both confessed that no one could stop him from doing that which he wanted and that which he willed to do. Job said, I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. And King Nebuchadnezzar said, All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He that is God does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, What have you done? Beloved, no one can resist the power and the strength of God. And the same is true with the power of God's grace. So far in our study of the canons of Dort, we've considered the Bible's deep doctrines of unconditional election. The God elected some for salvation from before the foundation of the earth and elected them not because of anything they have done or because of what they can do. We've considered limited atonement. That Jesus Christ completely satisfied our Heavenly Father for our sins. and that His saving sacrifice is sufficient for all men, but is efficient or effective only for His sheep. And we've considered total depravity that sin infests and infects every aspect of man's life. Boys and girls, remember the glass of water with a drop of poison, and when that water is all stirred up with that drop of poison, the entire contents of the glass is now poisonous. Every aspect of man's life is stained with sin. but He is neither able nor willing to do any spiritual good. And as we've considered these deep doctrines, we've seen that the Bible indeed teaches about these things. And we may not totally understand them, and we may not be able to totally reason our way through them, but again, that's not our concern. Our concern is that we believe them. Our concern is that we believe the Word of God. Our concern is that we repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But then the question that we now face is this, how do God's people repent and believe unto salvation? After all, Scripture is clear. The call is there in many, many, many places. The Scripture is clear that man's responsibility is to repent and believe. The Philippian jailer said to Paul and Silas, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Peter told the Pentecost congregation, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And Paul says in Romans 13, For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Do you notice a continuity there? Will be saved. Shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Shall be saved. Not maybe. Not if God has to think about it first, but actually. God's Word is clear, beloved, that I am saved by grace through faith. Having saving faith, believing in Jesus Christ is indispensable. It is necessary for salvation. Boys and girls, you can't do without it. The Holy Spirit applies Christ's saving sacrifice to my life through that instrument called faith. Remember that umbilical cord? That instrument through which we are connected to our Heavenly Father, through which the life of Jesus Christ and all His benefits are poured forth to you and me who believe. But still then, why do I have faith? How is it that I come to believe? I preach to you the Bible's deep doctrine of irresistible grace as we consider this Word of God. God irresistibly works in the elect so that they believe unto salvation. Consider, first of all, the sincere call. Second, the Almighty Author. And finally, the joyful result. Now, it's interesting. You remember that in the canons of Dort, the third and fourth heads of doctrine are considered together. And it's interesting that in the canons, it makes the transition from total depravity to irresistible grace in Article 8 by talking about the serious call of the Gospel in a different version of the canons which I have in my study. That heading is listed by the article number The Serious Call of the Gospel. Article 8 says again, As many as are called by the Gospel are unfeignedly called. That means seriously called. For God has most earnestly and truly declared in His Word what is acceptable to Him. Namely, that those who are called should come unto Him. He also seriously promises rest of soul and eternal life to all who come to Him and believe. Now, a survey of Scripture shows us that the Gospel call is a sincere call. And it is a serious call. God means what He says. In Isaiah 45, verse 22, the Lord says, Look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. There again, that verse, along with the verses I quoted previously. Look to Me and be saved. Not maybe, but actually. And Jesus says those familiar words in Matthew 11, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We read in Acts that God commands all men everywhere to repent. God's call is a sincere call. It's a serious call. A call to be taken seriously. Now, since the canons of Dort were prepared in response to the error of the Arminianism, we need to consider what Arminianism teaches. And Arminianism takes these passages that teach God's sincere call as well as the command to repent and believe and teach that therefore all sinners must then be able of themselves to comply with the demands of the Gospel. They must be able to. It actually goes back further than Arminius, back to Pelagius, who said, if I ought, then I can. If I ought to do something, if I'm supposed to do something, then I can do it. I must be able to do it. After all, don't we also read in Philippians 2, verse 12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling? Because if they can't, if all people don't have the same chance to be saved, because God has already decided who would be saved and who wouldn't be saved, then this isn't sincere. It's just a game. It's hypocritical. It's just a fake or pretend call. And in many respects, it's no different than if you were going to have a gathering, you were going to throw a party, and there's someone that you knew you should invite, but you really didn't want to. But then you knew they couldn't come anyway. So what's the danger? Go ahead and invite them. They're going to say no. That's not a sincere invitation. But you see, congregation, our God doesn't work that way. Article 8, reflecting Scripture's teaching, says that what is acceptable to God is that those who are called, who hear that external call, the Gospel reaches their ears, what is acceptable to God is that they should come to Him. He is serious. And also, He seriously promises rest of soul and eternal life for those who repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for those who come to Him. Jesus wasn't just kidding when He said, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That wasn't just a joke. But Arminianism says that if God calls all to faith and repentance, but then doesn't work regeneration by the Spirit in them, which we Reformed people say is necessary, then God isn't very sincere. Beloved, Scripture teaches that there is a universal offer of salvation, but not an offer of universal salvation. And I hope that you can see the difference. There is a universal offer of salvation. Jesus commanded that the Gospel go into all the world. But as we have seen before, God's decree according to His revealed will is that only the elect would respond to that Gospel call. It is not an offer of universal salvation. Our God never says anywhere in Scripture that it was His intention to save absolutely everyone. But God's promises are sincere and serious. And then we see that demonstrated, don't we, to those who come to Him. That the Bible teaches that God desires something that He has not decreed should happen. We see that there is in God a benevolent, loving kindness towards the repentance and salvation of even those He has not decreed to save. He seriously calls, He seriously promises eternal life to those who come to Him. Can we understand this fully? That on the one hand, the call is to go out to everyone seriously. But on the other hand, God has not chosen to save everyone? No, we can't. Yet, just because we can't, man must not then modify God's plan to suit our finite and our sinful understanding just to make it palatable and pleasing and acceptable to some. Paul says in Romans 9, You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will? But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He hath prepared beforehand for glory? Congregation indeed, God has given man the responsibility to repent and believe. When Adam fell into sin, he made the decision, and we with him, not to believe and be obedient. And at that time, man lost the ability to carry out his responsibility. But do you know what? That doesn't remove the responsibility to repent and believe and be obedient. That doesn't lessen that responsibility. It's never wiped out. Article 9 in the third and fourth head of doctrine makes it clear that those who reject the sincere call of the Gospel do it not because the Gospel is faulty. The Gospel is good news. The Gospel is the truth. They reject it not because Christ is faulty. His sacrifice is both sufficient and effective. They reject it not because God is faulty. The fact that God requires something that is impossible is not His fault. It is the sinner's fault. God has never changed or lowered His standards. Not back then. Not today. Those who reject the sincere call of the Gospel reject it because they believe the lie of Satan rather than the truth of God. Those who reject the truth of God and follow the lie of Satan are doing what they prefer. What they desire. What they want. what pleases them. And those who reject God's call are guilty before Him on their own account and they will be punished in hell forever for their unbelief, not because of any perceived insincerity and non-seriousness on behalf of God. Those who reject God reject Him because they are unable and unwilling to come to Him. And as we have seen before, that's because they are dead. All are dead apart from God, including each and every one of us. So then the question remains still, how do some come to repent and believe? How are some then able to carry out the responsibility to answer God's call? Those who answer the sincere call of the Gospel to repent and believe do it because they have been made alive. Understand, it's not that they make themselves alive, but they have been made alive. You remember what Paul says in Ephesians 2, verse 5, But God, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. And God did this through His irresistible grace by the power of the Almighty Author. Beloved sinners who go to hell get all the blame for going there. But God gets all the credit and all the praise and glory for the saints who go to heaven. The external call of the gospel that is to reach the ears of all mankind is universal. It goes to all men. It's supposed to go to all men. But the internal call, which is made effective, goes only to the elect. Article 11 points out that the Holy Spirit takes that external call and, as the article says, powerfully illuminates their minds that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit takes the Gospel message and calls the elect internally. The regenerating Spirit, as the article says, pervades, or in other words, penetrates the inmost recesses of man. He opens the closed and softens the hardened heart and circumcises that which was uncircumcised, Infuses new qualities into the will, which though heretofore, that is beforehand, dead, he quickens. From being evil, disobedient, and refractory, he renders it good, obedient, and pliable. Another translation is a little more understandable, I think, when it says, Makes the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant. And then the article ends that the Spirit actuates or activates and strengthens it, that will, that like a good tree it may bring forth the fruits of good actions. When one hears the Gospel promise and believes it and repents of his sins, that's conversion. But why does he convert from being a slave to sin and Satan to being a servant of Christ? Why does he go from having a heart that is unable and unwilling to believe to having one that is both able and willing? Because of what the Lord says to Ezekiel in chapter 36, the previous chapter, verses 26 and 27. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Beloved, a heart of flesh here is talking about one that is sensitive to sin. One that recognizes sin and desires to flee from sin. A heart of flesh is one that is tender to God's will. One that sees God's will by the grace of God and desires to follow it. It is a heart that is moldable, fashionable, shapeable. One that is filled with affection, love for God above all and our neighbor as ourself. The Holy Spirit enlightens the mind of the sinner and He penetrates the heart of the sinner. He gives the sinner's will, which is otherwise captive to sin, He gives it the readiness to do good. He makes the sinner's will, which is otherwise dead and lifeless to the things of God, He makes it begin to live and become receptive to the gospel call. He makes the will which is otherwise unwilling and unable to do right, He makes it begin to desire that which is right. He activates and enlivens the otherwise inactive and lifeless will to produce the good fruits which come from a tree that has been made good. Beloved, the Holy Spirit of God makes the sinner able to turn willingly in repentance and faith to God. But it doesn't end there. one that has been touched by the Spirit can't do other than turn in repentance and faith to God. He can't do other than that. Because God's grace is irresistible. As Article 12 rightly says, so that in all whose heart God works in this marvelous manner are certainly, infallibly, and effectually regenerated and do actually believe. The Arminian teaching again is that yes, the inward call is there. We acknowledge that, but all that the Spirit can do is try to persuade the sinner. All the Spirit can do is try to coax the sinner to turn from his evil ways. The sinner is still able to successfully resist the work of the Spirit. And because of the faulty error of Arminianism concerning the order of events, Arminianism believes that man must decide to believe and have faith before the Holy Spirit can regenerate him. But we know that even practically speaking, that doesn't make sense because one who is dead can't even make a decision to take a drink of water, let alone make a decision to believe and have faith. But because of this error, therefore, the application of Christ's work to the sinner by the Spirit is limited and defined by the sinner's willingness or lack of willingness to cooperate. And the Holy Spirit then can only draw to God those who allow Him to draw them to God. With this view, beloved, man can obstruct God's grace. He can stand in the way of God's grace. He can resist God's grace. With that view, man believes in order to be regenerated or to be born again. But the truth of Scripture is that man is born again in order that he might believe unto salvation. Notice verse 14 of Ezekiel 37. The Lord says, I will put My Spirit in you and you will live. Notice the order. Not you will live, therefore I will put My Spirit in you, but I will put My Spirit in you and you will live. Congregation, no one decides to give himself new birth, just as not one of us decided to be born in the first place physically. And be assured that God will not be surprised one day in heaven that someone snuck in, someone caused themselves to be born again that he wasn't planning on. Scripture makes it clear that if the elect are going to be saved, God is the one and the only one who has to do it, and He does it through His Holy Spirit working in us. In John 1, verses 12 and 13, we read, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of God, but of God. Titus 3, verse 5 says, According to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 16, verse 14, we read about Lydia, the seller of purple, and it says, the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. Beloved, we reject the teaching that says that the Holy Spirit only does so much and can only try to persuade us to believe. And the rest is up to us. The Canons clearly teaches against that, rightly so. And we also read that in the rejection of errors at the end of this section. But notice the wording of Article 12 and 14. Article 12, speaking of this regeneration, says, Which God works in us without our aid, but this is in no wise effected merely by the external preaching of the Gospel, by moral suasion or persuasion, or such a mode of operation that after God has performed His part, it still remains in the power of man to be regenerated or not, to be converted or to continue unconverted, but is evidently a supernatural work and most powerful. Article 14 says, Faith is therefore to be considered as the gift of God, not on account of its being offered by God to man to be accepted or rejected at His pleasure, but because it is in reality conferred upon Him, breathed and infused into Him, nor even because God bestows the power or ability to believe and then expects that man should, by the exercise of his own free will, consent to the terms of salvation and actually believe in Christ. It says here at the end, God produces both, through His Spirit, produces both the will to believe and the act of believing. Both the will to believe and the act of believing. Now, we don't have time to survey all the scriptural proofs for the necessity of the Spirit to work for salvation or that it is irresistible. But we have a beautiful illustration, I believe, before us this morning in the passage that we read. Ezekiel 37 and the Valley of Dry Bones. God reveals they're the only way these dry, brittle, dusty, dead bones could live. At the command of God, Ezekiel preaches, dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. You see, the sincere call goes forth, the external call. And as he preached the Word of the Lord, Then by the Word of the Lord, the bones rattled. They came together. And tendons and flesh and skin all formed. But what? They were all still just lying. They're dead. Where was the breath to come from? Where was the life? How could the dead be made alive again? Verses 9 and 10, Then He said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, Son of man, and say to it, This is what the Sovereign Lord says. Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet. A vast army. It wasn't until the very breath of God entered these bodies that they lived. We sing of the Spirit when we sing, Breathe on me, breath of God, so shall I never die. On their own, these dry bones were neither able nor willing to come to life, were they? By their own decision, they would have simply stayed a pile of dry bones. But when the breath of God, the Spirit, was breathed into them, they couldn't resist life. You see, the truth is, if we could resist, we would resist. And there's no comfort in that congregation. But this passage is a beautiful picture of the irresistible grace of God. This passage illustrates for us the irresistible power of the Almighty, author of our salvation. And you know what? We find the same thing in Philippians 2. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now Arminianism would say again, now stop, see, I told you so. It says right there, it's up to me. I have to do it. I have to handle my salvation. I have to work it out. But you see, what's the context? Paul is talking there about born-again believers, those of whom he could say in confidence just one chapter before, He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. It's already begun. He has begun it. You see, beloved, It violates Scripture to stop with the words, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. We must continue, it says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. It is God who works in you both to will and to do. Those who are born again are called to take their responsibility seriously in the strength of the Spirit. We are called to exercise repentance and the gift of faith as the Holy Spirit makes all of these things conscious to us. We are called to fight the good fight of faith. We are called to apply the assurance of Christ's saving work to our daily lives. We are called to live as those born again to a living hope. Yes, beloved, God's people have been given the responsibility to repent and believe, but this is not in order to be saved. Instead, it is because we are saved. Repentance and faith are the joyful results of God's irresistible work. These are the evidence of Christ's saving sacrifice being applied to the Christian's life by the regenerating and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. You may recall from our consideration of total depravity that Article 3 said that without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God to reform the depravity of their nature or to dispose themselves to reformation without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. But, by the regenerating, irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit, God spiritually revives, heals, reforms, and returns the sinner's will, granting it a true freedom and readiness to do God's bidding to be obedient. The sinner repents and believes because he has been given a new disposition of heart. He has been changed. He is a new creation. In fact, the believer can't not believe. It's impossible that he shouldn't believe. Why? He still follows his nature, you see, but it's a new one. One that is in step with God by the grace of God. Now, can we fully understand this? Article 13 says, The manner of this operation cannot be fully comprehended by believers in this life. Nevertheless, they are satisfied to know and experience that by this grace of God, they are enabled to believe with a heart and to love their Savior. Beloved, God irresistibly works in the elect so that they believe on the salvation. And through His saving sacrifice, Jesus Christ secured that irresistible grace of God for each and every one of His own. It is so secure, it is so sure that He could confidently say in John 6, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me. And the One who comes to Me, I will by no means cast out. And He says, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise Him up at the last day. That irresistible grace of God makes alive what is dead. And as believers, we who were dead in our trespasses and sins were made alive in Christ by the breath of the Holy Spirit. Beloved, we love God because He first loved us. And that is a comfort. And I pray that it's a comfort for each one. As I expressed this morning, It was such a joy for the people in the first service to witness that comfort being expressed by those three, Rachel, Josh, and Ed. That they have been able to testify that they know who has begun that good work in them. They know why it is they have been brought to the point that they have been brought to even today. They know that apart from the working of the Holy Spirit, they would not believe. Beloved, those who are truly able to resist the grace of God don't have it in the first place. If God wills to save us, who can stop Him? No one. Praise the Lord. Why do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Because by the wondrous grace of God, I can do no other. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, again we bow before You in humility in Jesus' name. We recognize that indeed this especially is a deep doctrine of the Bible. Hard to understand, hard to comprehend. Something that we can only understand once You have brought us to faith in You. But Father, we pray that we might not desire to take things into our own hands, to take control of the situation ourselves because by ourselves we would indeed make the wrong decision. We would remain nothing but a pile of dry, dusty, dead bones. But we praise You, O Lord, that You have seen fit, knowing full well what we have been in need of, to make us alive by the power of Your Spirit, that we might live for You in all things. O Heavenly Father, may we walk every day, every moment, and the joy of the salvation. We ask You to hear our prayer for Jesus' sake and in His name, Amen.