Bury The Dead | Pastor Paul McGee

Body today in the House of the Lord.

Greetings to all of our guests this morning.

We're so happy that you have chosen to come and worship with

us. Amen.

And we appreciate you for doing so.

We had our winner's circle dinner last night at login with

those who could make it and we had a good time.

We even had dessert. Not to rub it in or anything,

but we just we even had dessert. Amen, Louise Glad that those

that could make it and yes, we are so glad to have sister

Brenda with us in July will have been a year since she's had her

bypass open heart surgery and then a spin tell of other things

of wounds not healing and the infection then that happened

with her ear that cause others. She just got out of the hospital

yesterday, folks, and she said she wanted to go to church.

And so with that, though, I think it's also good because

I've had to kind of a sideline view.

I think it's also good to give honor to Todd and Mindy because

they've kept very good care of their mom over these past

several, several months, tagging in and tagging out.

They have done it and we honor them because they have just been

tremendous son and daughter to their mom.

And I know she appreciates that wholeheartedly because they've

been here there for her, Amen. We're also glad to have Chad and

Angel visiting here today and their family and they've,

they've this used to be church for them And, and now they, you

know, he came on his, his horse and, and stole her heart and,

and such. But we're glad to have them,

Amen. Visiting this morning as well.

I'm going to be turning to the book of Ezekiel today, Old

Testament prophet book of Ezekiel this morning and I'm

going to be reading from chapter 39.

Got a few verses to read today in your hearing.

And that we'll see what the Lord will will speak through his

word. If he ever said like, well, I

never, God's just never speaks to me.

Like you know in your heart, your mind will just open His

Word, Amen. That it's His letter, His word

to all of us. And then Ezekiel chapter 39, and

Ezekiel 39 · chapter mention

I'm going to begin reading with verse #11 the Bible says, and it

shall come to pass in that day that I will give unto Gog.

And folks, just let's just Gog is so close to God.

I'm probably going to mess that up more than once today.

OK, let's just just lay it out straight.

But nonetheless I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in

Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the

sea. It shall stop the noses of the

passengers, and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude,

and they shall call it the valley of Hem and Gog.

And seven months shall the House of Israel be burying of them,

that they may cleanse the land. Yeah, all the people of the land

shall bury them. It shall be to them a renown.

The day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord God.

And they shall sever out of continual employment, passing

through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain

up on the face of the earth, to cleanse it after the end of

seven months, just shall they search.

And the passengers that pass through the land, when they see

if a man's bones, then they shall set up a sign by it, till

the barriers have buried it in the valley of hem on dog.

And also the name of the city shall be Hamona.

With thus shall they cleanse the land.

Now, if you are a student of the Bible, Ezekiel 38 and 39 a lot

of times is debated as chapters that point toward the end of

time. And there's many that believe

that these verses have not been fulfilled because there's

there's no historical event that even closely matches the details

of of this chapter. And there's others that believe,

and I'm telling you this so that you know how I'm preaching this

today. So others believe that these

chapters could very well just be a model of the history that

Israel has had, meaning this the God's peoples are always been

plagued to a certain degree by a quote UN quote Gog.

There's always been an adversary, there's always been

an opponent. There's always been some type of

evil or enemy that's attempted to eradicate God's people and

frustrate God's people through history.

And so even if this event hasn't taken place on the prophetic

timeline, it's still reveals God's mind regarding how

opposing forces and opposing enemies are to be dealt with.

So forgive me this morning as I talk about this, I'm going to

talk about it as though it's already happened, although in

the prophetic timeline that's not, but it is a model really on

how God deals with things that opposes his people.

So our focus today is that how does God deal with, and then how

should we deal with the things that oppose us, attack us,

undermine us, how they should be dealt with?

And so my title today is simply this bury the dead.

Bury the dead. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, I love you today. Got a thankful Lord Jesus for

the group of people that have gathered in here this morning.

I pray, O God, that their lives will be Lord change challenge

Lord, helped, encouraged by the word of the Lord God.

Let your word, Lord Jesus stand out to us today.

Let it be instruction Lord, for our lives today.

I know Lord God, some come in Lord with their own issues and

with their own Lord opposition Lord, and struggles and

frustrations. But God, we submit them to you

today can under the Almighty God that's able to care Lord Jesus

and take care Lord of the needs of our life in the lovely name

of Jesus Christ that I pray Hallelujah and the church say

Amen, Amen. You may be seated this morning

in Jesus name. What we spy upon here in

Scripture is really a story of a foe and the enemy that has been

defeated. Victory is in the camps of

Israel. There is a lot of things that

are going on. There is grave site and burial

ground that is taking place. But as you think about this, if

it were to be an adversary, if it were to be an arch enemy of

the Children of Israel, you would think that that victory

would be enough. I mean, after having been

antagonized by someone or a group army of someone's that was

coming against you and caused you a lot of heartache and, and

pain and uncertainty in life, you would think that the days

after that would just be times of celebration and times of, of

victory, slapping each other on the back and giving high fives

to one another. Because whenever the battle's

over, we all know, right, that when the battle is over, the the

enemy is defeated. We even sing songs almost along

those lines. You know that, that the enemy

has been defeated, you know, and death, death can't hold the Lord

down and all these type of things.

And, and so whenever God steps in and, and does what only God

can do, bring victory into our lives and we see that, then we

assume that the story is finished.

It's, it's kind of like the alpha and the Omega of it.

We put a period at the end of the sentence.

And so we shout and we celebrate and we testify because in our

minds, if the enemy is down, then the problem is over.

We equate that fallen enemies that are littering the ground,

bodies, if you will, that that's just finished business, that

Ezekiel chapter 39 kind of disrupts that type of mind frame

Ezekiel 39 · chapter mention

and that type of thinking. Because although Israel didn't

lose this battle, as a matter of fact, in Scripture, it doesn't

even look like much that they even fought the battle.

The Bible tells us in verses 3 and four that God himself

defeated Gog. The Bible says that God said, I

will smite the bow out of thy left hand and will cause thine

arrows to fall out of thy right hand, and thou shalt fall up on

the mountains of Israel. It doesn't even look like Israel

lifted much of A finger, but God showed up on the scene and he

fought their battle for them and secured the victory for them.

And so we would just naturally think that the next verse is

after such a proclamation of God saying, I'm going to take care

of business business and I'm going to do warfare and I'm

going to bring victory. We would think that the next

verses would just say, well, the land had rest and the people

rejoiced and the glory of the Lord just filled the place where

they were in their atmosphere again.

But that's not what took place. God secured the victory, and

then he told Israel to grab a shovel.

The text says that God would give Gog A burial place in

Israel. He said, I will give unto Gog a

place there of graves in Israel, particularly says I'll give them

a valley, Amen, where all of their bodies will be buried.

And this was a disgrace, of course, for the adversary.

This was a disgrace for the enemy.

For any enemy formidable enemy to be buried upon the opponent's

soil or the opponent's territory was a disgrace to them.

And it's just one thing because this army of Gog is described in

chapter 38 as a very well uniformed army, a heavily armed

army, a well marshalled army. They had a chair of tears and

they had people that could pull bow with arrows and they had a

Calvary, if you will, that can March out on the on the battle

scene. And for them to be defeated,

that's one thing. But it's quite another thing

then to have your remains, your defeated army to be buried in

the enemy territory, to be buried upon the soil of Israel.

And the Bible tells us, think of this slaughter.

This is going to be a huge slaughter.

The slaughter is so great that they are burying bodies for

seven months. There's such a decimation of the

army and such a size of the army that the House of Israel burying

bodies for seven months, Amen. Those seven months, it's not

their time necessarily of of celebration, but it is a time of

burial. And the victory that they got

was divine. The victory they got came by the

hand of the Lord. But although their victory was

divine, the cleanup was quite human.

All the people, the Bible says in verses 12 and 13 that all the

people of the land of the House of Israel shall bury them.

God brought the breakthrough as we sung just a little bit of

this morning, God brought the breakthrough, but he assigned

the responsibility of burying the dead to the House of Israel.

And so that confronts us with a little bit of a truth that

confronts us with a little bit of a situation that we don't

always recognize. And that is this, that just

because God has given you victory does not mean your

responsibility is over. Because the land was not deemed

pure and the victory wasn't absolutely secured until they

cleanse the body, the, the, the, the land of all the dead bodies.

The Bible says that God struck the bow from God's hand and God

caused the army to fall and he secured the victory.

Yes, but God did not bury the bodies.

He didn't go through the land and bury the bodies.

He handed that responsibility to his people.

Because here is the principle I believe the Scripture is

teaching in this moment that God will do what God does, what only

God can do. But he's not going to do what we

can do. The Bible says in the Gospel of

Luke chapter 18 and verse 27, it's a wonderful passage that a

Luke 18 · chapter mention

lot of times people just quote. They talk about that the things

which are impossible with men are possible with God.

That means that you and I, our humanity has limits.

We can only do so much and there's things in our lives.

How many ever thought of something in your life being,

well, that's impossible? Will we leave the impossible

things to the God that specializes in impossibilities?

Hey, man, He has a capacity that's above ours and beyond

ours. But this also means that there

are some things that's possible with men.

There's things that are impossible with men, but there

are also some things that are possible with men.

There are things that God defeats.

Amen. That that he then expects us to

deal with the aftermath of burying the bodies.

What are you saying this morning, Brother McGee?

I'll say this today. We all have moments when we need

God to step. We all have situations where we

need God to step up and take control and demand the wind, if

you will. You remember the disciples on

the boat, He, they had to wake him up in order for him to go to

the helm and speak to the wind. A disciple couldn't take control

of that, but God could, and he came and he took control.

We have moments of time that we need God to step in and handle

the impossible, but there's still some things in the

aftermath that we got to deal with.

What are you saying? We all, if you've ever been

addicted to anything, you needed a God moment where God would

come in and deal with the addiction.

But we have to deal with the dead body.

We still got to change the environment.

There are times that God will come in and silence, if you

will, the voice, but sometimes our opportunity is to stop

listening for it and reintroducing it into our lives.

He'll bring the enemy down many times in our life, but we got to

remove what remains. We got got to bury the dead.

Sometimes we're celebrating victories while still living in

environments that shaped by what once fought us.

Imagine if they secured the victory and they're going to

walk around them for ages with these dead bodies that's just

going to decompose over time on the ground.

What type of situation would that really be, huh?

If there was no clean up, we got victory.

Oh, here's a body over here filled with worms and everything

else decomposing in the stench in the air.

That kind of puts a little tanked on the victory, doesn't

it? Praise God for victory.

They're they're walking through contamination if no one buries

the bodies, God saying I won the battle.

But there's still some work for you to do because according to

the biblical law, whenever something such as a dead body

was there open on the ground, not entombed and not in the

grave. It was known to be nothing

defiled. Amen.

That the arena or or the land or the space like a dead body.

Whenever life left a body, the moment that it happened, it

immediately became ceremonially unclean.

And if you touched it, the law said you were unclean for seven

days and you had to go through proper means of purification.

There were even some in the New Testament that they believed

that if this, your shadow touched the grave or the tomb of

where a corpse or part of a corpse, Amen, was buried, then

it brought impurity to you, Amen.

A matter of fact, the New Testament scripture, when it

talks about the whitewashing of the tombs, they did that with

intention because they wanted people to know where people were

in. They didn't want it to be a

hidden. They wanted people to know

because they didn't want them to be impure by their shadow

touching it or them walking over it.

And so all of these things with bodies just laying around, if

you were around a dead body or in the vicinity of a dead body,

it could keep you from celebrating some of the feast of

the Old Testament, sometimes for even as long as a month.

So it didn't just affect the people, it affected the land, it

affected the environment, it affected social gatherings, it

affected what you could be a part of, what you couldn't be a

part of. In other words, the dad still

had power to contaminate. Although they were dead, they

still had. History enforces this Ladies and

gentlemen, in our great history, our great president of Abraham

Lincoln. After the Battle of Gettysburg,

thousands of bodies in your history were left exposed across

the battlefield. The fighting had already

stopped. The battle was already over.

The outcome was already settled, but the environment was not

safe. At Gettysburg, after the battle

had been done, there was the smell and the stench of death

that had filled the air. And as a result of all these

dead bodies, their water sources started to be affected and

disease became a real problem because there were still bodies

on the ground. And so they had to Commission

some burial crews, Brother Fred to go in and start cleaning up.

And then what took weeks of enemy bodies and and and comrade

bodies. The battle was over.

But now there was a possible disease in the land because the

body was not yet buried. They were no longer fighting,

but it was still dangerous. It was still dangerous.

And so just because something is no longer alive doesn't mean it

may not still be trying to affect you if you've not buried

it. Sometimes we got to put the

hatchet in the tree, so to speak.

Don't let it just lie on the surface.

Don't let it just lie around your environment.

Don't let it just lie around your mind.

You got to bury it. You got to lay it to rest.

It's dead, but you got to lay some things to rest.

Yes, Sir. Things in our lives are no

longer active but still present because their presence has never

been buried. Contaminating our thinking,

contaminating our spirit, contaminating our environment.

God instructed Israel. He didn't say we got victory

today. Don't mind the the bodies, just

step over and it'll be OK. Ignore them.

Move forward. Just push him aside.

No, his plea was very simple. Bury the dead.

Bury the dead. Because burial does something

that defeat alone doesn't accomplish.

It puts it out of sight, out of mind.

It conceals the stench to a degree.

Yeah. Come on.

Burial removes the exposure. Burial.

We all know it. I often say we, we we do Funeral

services and sometimes we do graveside services.

And it's such a hard time, right.

Whenever the family's not going to see their loved one anymore,

that that finality and not seeing the love anymore, it's

like the separation that takes place.

Well, listen in a way in the spirit.

We need some separation. We need not to see anymore.

Burial stops the spread. Amen.

It's the difference between something just being defeated

and something being dealt with. The Bible calls on us as

converts and I was thinking about this today of how such a

great picture this is of our journey of coming to know the

Lord because the Bible tells us in Scripture as converts in Acts

238 that we should repent and be baptized in Romans 6, the

apostle Paul was asked in the church at Roman verses 3 through

4. He says, know ye not that so

many of you as were baptized in Jesus Christ were baptized into

his death. Look at the look at the

symbolism here. Therefore we are buried with him

by baptism in to death. That's a wonderful thing because

when I think of Christ's work at Calvary that we celebrated on

Good Friday not that long ago, the Bible says that Christ bore

our sins in his body according to first Peter chapter #2.

And the Bible says that in the Gospels there was one of Joseph,

Armethia that begged a pilot, if he could have the body of

Christ, that he could lay that body in his new tomb, that he

could bury the body in the tomb, that body that had become sin.

What didn't know any sin, but he took your sin and my sin and

took it upon himself. And so Joseph of Armathea

saying, can I take that body of sin and can I bury it in a tomb?

Amen. That body that's been destroyed

on the cross, can I bury it in the tomb?

Because it wasn't totally dealt with until it was buried.

And Joseph of Armathea said, let me take the body and bury it in

the tomb. What are you saying this

morning? I'm saying this.

If you've never been baptized, if you've never been buried with

him, I urge to do it so, to do so this morning, because all the

victory has been secured for all of us.

Although all of us cast our eyes back to a cross into blood that

was shed, Amen. There's still some things that

need to be buried, Paul acknowledged.

He said in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing.

I'll tell you what I'm going to do with that old flesh, this old

human flesh. I'm going to take it to a watery

grave and I'm going to bury it because something things, though

I had the victory, still need to be buried.

Happens happened in history whenever things are not dealt

with. This is back in the 1300s,

there's a siege of a city. There was some mongo forces.

They this was their tactic. They say this was maybe 1 of the

earliest indications of biological warfare.

It's kind of gruesome really to think of it, but these mongo

forces would catapult infected corpse over the wall into the

city. Those bodies were not alive,

they were not fighting, but they were plagued with disease

because they had died somewhere and been left.

They took them and hurled them over the city walls because

though dead, they still carried something deadly.

Why do you think that? Sometimes they have people come

in these hazmat suits to deal with certain illness and

disease? Because though that person,

whoever though the bodies even may be dead, you got to be

careful because there's still something deadly.

There's still something deadly about it.

Hey, man, there could be a rapid outbreak.

And that's what happened there in that city where they were

hurling these, these dead infected plague bodies over.

It started an outbreak then within the city that they were

trying to take siege over. Hey, man, because of they doing

this, folks, let me tell you something.

We need a burial today. We need a burial today.

Hey, man, thank God for cross, Thank God for Calvary, Thank God

for crucifying things in our life.

But we need to take it to the burial grounds.

Ananias, he gave some very sound advice to to Saul.

Saul was on his way to this Damascus.

He was going to wreak havoc to those that were teaching and

preaching Jesus. And he was struck blind.

And the Bible says God spoke to Ananias and says, Ananias, I

want you to go see Saul. I want you to lay your hands on

him. He's going to receive his sight.

He's going to be a great preacher for me.

And so Ananias did that. He's like, Lord, you know, this

guy's killed a lot of people, right?

Why send me? You could have sent such and

such. Why me?

And he goes and he prays for Saul, and Saul gets his eyesight

back. And this is the advice that

Ananias gave Saul in Acts 2216. He says, now why Terrius, thou

look at that, Why Terry, Why wait?

Why delay? Why hold back?

Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins.

Calling on the name of the Lord, He says God's just done a great

work in your life by me laying my hands up on you on you, but

don't wait though it might be dead.

Go bury it. Take it to the waters of baptism

for the washing away. There's some folks.

This is more than just about getting wet.

It's about having your sins remitted.

It's about taking care of that which was deadly upon and in

your life. Thank God I'm not not what I

used. I used to be.

He was telling and, and Ice was telling him bury the dead,

because if we don't handle some things properly, they'll come

back to haunt us. Even after seven months, seven

months of burying people. In this chapter, the Bible says

there were selected special forces, if you will, of people

who would be under continual employment.

That's what the Bible says in verse #14 After seven months of

burying the dead, there's going to be a special forces unit

under continual employment. Their job for the chat is to

walk throughout the land. And if they were to find any

stray bone, any stray corpse in these mountainous regions of the

enemy, they were to set up a marker sign.

There must be some people that would go ahead of them and set

up some marker sign if they found it.

And they do that for a couple of reasons #1 they don't want

anybody else to be polluted by what this piece is.

But number 2 is the indication to this Special Forces unit that

when they saw it, there's something there that needs to be

buried. Twofold didn't want anybody else

to get polluted. But those who are responsible

still yet responsible for burying, that they would take

care of business even after seven months of already burying

things. Why?

Because we can't allow not one piece, not one remnant.

Have you ever found yourself in the mode that you thought you

got over or got past something only to recycle and be dealing

with it again and you thought you was over pass it and you

recycle it? You know ofttimes what that is?

It's getting victory, but not burying bodies.

Come on, it's good. Hey man, skin victory, but not

burying the body. And so we walk along in life and

lone to hold. We come across a bone from that

yesteryear thing that used to attack us.

We come across a remain of that yesteryear problem that we used

to deal with. And all of a sudden we start

hearing the voices and we start feeling the pool, and the

temptation comes and the mind starts to linger and think.

He says we got to mark this stuff because we don't need

people to be defiled again. And quite frankly, we need to

take this to the burial ground. There's a place for this, but

the place for it is not where it's at.

There's a place for us. That place is under the ground.

That place is that it would be buried to prevent further

defilement. We we got to set up a sign.

Here's here's I think sometimes the issue, we got people setting

signs, but we're building memorials rather than signs of

indication that something needs to be taken care of.

Sometimes we memorialize past events of our life rather than

marking them. Sister Cox for burial.

My wife and I have been in and out of the prison system

probably about 25 different states across the United States

of America, state penitentiaries.

And I hear sometimes them tell their stories.

And this doesn't just happen in prison, it just happens everyday

life. And let me say this, there is a

fine line between telling your past and giving glory to God and

magnifying the corruption that you were involved in, almost

like a badge of honor. Come on, come on.

Is everybody OK? Because I've heard sometimes

people talk about their past almost in a glory day mode

rather than giving glory to God Mode.

Like you won't believe how bad I am Like what I got by with an

XYZ. We're not careful.

We're memorializing a moment that we were in the vice of yes,

that's right. Rather than wanting to take the

remains and bury it. Hey, man, you know, it's, it's

the thing that happened whenever you read in the story of Joshua

chapter #7 the Bible talks about the children of Israel coming

into the land of promise. And one of the first places they

went was Jericho. And then they went to AI.

And the Bible says when they went to AI, there were some

accursed things that were some accursed things and they were

not to partake of the accursed things.

Those things belonged in the Lord.

The Lord would take care of those things.

The Bible says there was one man by the name of Akin that

whenever he went in and seen these things, the Bible says he

took a Babylonious garment and a wedge of gold and some shekels

of silver and he hid it under his tent.

And as a result of that there was some disdain.

There was some disdain that that that took place and they had

lost a battle and God was revealing that there was someone

among them that have taken of the accursed thing.

And the Bible says the lot fell. They were they were kind of

trying to decipher and discern who this was and it was Aiken.

And the Bible says when they found it was Aiken, they took

him and his family everything that he had taken.

And this is is quite, I know, severe, but they burned him and

his family and everything that they had taken.

And then the Bible says they put up this big old stack of stones

upon him. Listen, they were not

memorializing what Aiken done. They were not memorializing

that, hey, here's a guy that got by with getting 200 shekels of

gold and a wedge and, and about he they were not memorializing

it. What they were doing was telling

people there's some dead things right here, so stay at distance

because something is dead here. It's underneath this pile of

rocks and we don't want you to get too close unless something

happens to you. They weren't memorializing it.

It was a cold. Don't come any closer because

there's something dangerous right here, Honey, if we're

going to put markers in our life, we need to put markers in

our life where the danger occurs.

If it got you once there, you might need to put markers there.

I got to steer clear from that area because I got sucked in.

I got contaminated. I got I, I can't.

Ezekiel shows here in Scripture that this barrel act, this was a

deliberate act. This was not like a sideshow.

Well, you know, I guess we should do that.

No, this was a disciplined effort.

Look, look how look how organized it is.

This is not cash. This is not just the casual

cleanup after a battle. This is not, no, this is 7

months of all Israel being involved and then specialized me

and doing the work because they needed the land cleansed.

They needed the land pure and that required discipline.

It required discipline. Back in 2010 in Haiti, there was

a horrible earthquake that took place there.

Again, thousands of bodies laid in the open as a result of death

occurring from this earthquake. And they were all over the

place. Not because the people didn't

care, not because they didn't have an eye toward it, just

because all of the burial that was required of these thousands

of people in the coordination, the urgency of it all, it was

just overwhelming. And so the authorities of that

area understood something very, very well that they could not

afford though, to delay to take care of what was across the

ground, because the longer that they remain, the worse that the

condition, their living conditions for the living was

going to get. So burial crews were formed and

they acted upon it quickly because they knew if they didn't

do something decisively, it would just multiply the problem.

Even back years ago in the 14th century when you had the Black

Death that was all across the land land, their burial systems

just collapsed. And as a result of it, it just

got worse and got worse. Because when the dead isn't

dealt with, it's a downward spiral very quickly.

There's some things in my life, I know there's some things in my

life that if I just just try to ignore it, it's not going away.

Just turning my head doesn't make it go away.

No, it grows more dangerous by the day.

It's like someone, it's like someone coming to you with a

diagnosis and saying, well, I'm sorry, but you, you have XYZ,

you have cancer. It's like, well, OK, well we're

just going to let it go. Well, you just let it go.

You just open yourself up for the possibility of that just

growing worse. You, you just can't turn your

head away from some things. You you can't bat a eye over

some things. Some things require us getting

involved. I we can't, let me say it like

this, we can't afford to be casual what God has already

defeated. We got to bury the dead and that

requires discipline. All of this though, in

Scripture, in Ezekiel 39, it's more than just about cleansing

the land and more than just about the purity of the land.

We see in this, this book of Ezekiel, it's even about the

presence of God because anytime in Scripture that there is

defilement, and particularly when there's no intention for a

change, there's distance between humanity and God.

Adam and Eve transgress in the garden.

God would come down his voice in the cool of the day, meet with

them. But after their transgression,

what's Adam and Eve doing hiding among the trees?

Separation is happening, the Bible says in Isaiah 59 and two,

he said. But your iniquities have

separated between you and your God.

He tells us a New Testament scripture of 2nd Corinthians

617. He says wherefore come out from

among them to them that he's referring back to is the idols

that someone went back to worship.

And he says come out from among them and be separate, saith the

Lord, And touch not the unclean, and I will receive you.

Distance. Distance took place.

It's not that God will not approach us.

It's not that God will not attempt to woo us if we are

defiled, but it's simply this, that God will not cohabitate

with that, right? That's right.

Yeah. It's not a, it's not a both and

it's a either or. He won't cohabitate with that.

Something's got to change. Body's got to be buried.

So God demonstrates this earlier in the book of Ezekiel, because

the Bible says that the glory of the Lord had removed itself from

the temple, the glory of the Lord had removed itself from the

Tabernacle because there were things that were unclean, things

that had been defiled by adultery and by sin, and God's

glory just progressively departed from the temple.

And now before that presence would ever return, the land had

to be clean. So this was more in Ezekiel 39

than just about removing bodies. It was about preparing A

dwelling place, a dwelling place for the glory of the Lord, a

dwelling place for the presence of God, Amen.

And that that just mirrors Scripture so well in our own

spiritual lives because oftimes the precursor to God filling

someone with His Spirit is that they repent or have been

baptized, or even if he does fill them with their spirit like

Saul, Amen. They are monish baptism to

happen shortly thereafter, because once the body is buried,

Amen, It opens up this land, this body, this individual for

the presence of the Lord to come in, Amen.

God is interested in burial because he's intent on

resurrecting something inside of us, Amen.

Death cannot remain where a living God wants to dwell till

the death can't remain where living God wants to do well.

And So what we leave unburied doesn't just affect me, it

affects a man, the very manifestation of God in my life.

Again, it's not that God is not unwilling to come because he's

willing to go wherever he wants to go, but he is a holy God and

He's not going to coexist a man with any, if you will, things

that's leftover from the enemy, the opponent or the adversary.

So the Bible says in verse 16 of our text, it says they cleansed

the lamb. And then in chapter 43, you know

what's happening? Ezekiel says I see something

coming. I see something coming over the

hills and over the mountains in the distance.

What was it? He says it's the glory of the

Lord. Earlier he said it departed, but

now that the land is cleansed, he said, I see the glory coming

back. I see the presents coming back

because my people have buried the dead.

I brought them the victory, but they bear buried the dead.

There's been ties to my life. I've asked God, you know,

where's your glory at? Where's the dearness, Lord, that

we once had? Where where's you know, church

say, where's the move of God at anymore?

And since then I got to ask myself the question, Sister

Sheila, has something been left exposed?

There's something he cleansed. It's really burial.

It's about dealing with that past.

Whatever it may be, whatever your GOG is, whatever your GOG

is, substance abuse, relationship abuse, whatever

your dog is, God can bring the victory you can't bring

yourself. But he's going to hand you a

shovel to bury the dead two chapters earlier.

Probably 1 of the better known chapters of the book of Ezekiel.

Most people probably skip over Ezekiel, but one of the probably

best known chapters in Ezekiel's Ezekiel chapter 37, it's the

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

vision. But Ezekiel was taken away in of

a valley of dry bones. He was taken to this valley.

He's seen this valley of dry bones.

He says that they were very dry. They were scattered, they were

dismembered, there was no flesh upon them, no breath in them.

They were just bones all around. But the Spirit of the Lord came

to Ezekiel and he says, Prophet, I want you to prophecy to these

bones. I want you to command the wind

from the north, the South, the east and the West that there

would be a convergence up on these bones.

And the Bible says, OK Lord. And so he was obedient.

He prophesied to them and the wind came and the breath bone,

it started coming to bone. You know, you start singing a

little song with the knee bone connect to the, you know, bone

started coming to bone. Amen.

Flesh starts coming on their body, muscle and sinew starts

coming up on their body. Breath comes inside of them.

And the Bible says that this which was scattered bones all

over this body became an exceeding great army.

And the Scripture says that was an emblem of the whole House of

Israel, that they have been scattered, they've been dead,

they've been dismembered, and now the Spirit of God come back

and brought life unto them. But we take Ezekiel 37 and we

contrast that with Ezekiel 39 because we're at another valley

and there is another army, but this time there is no command

coming that says speak to these bones.

There's no command coming that's saying prophecy, life into these

bones. There's not the connecting of

the tissue or the connecting of the bone to bone or the muscle.

None of that is taking place, no restoration.

God is speaking in this moment. The only thing God is saying is

bury them. Why?

Because not everything God allows to die is meant to live

again. Let me say it again.

Not everything that God causes to die is meant to live again.

In 1 chapter, God says, Israel, I'm going to resurrect you.

Israel, I'm going to bring your members back together.

Israel, I'm going to bring new life in you.

But in the next moment he's looking at bones and he's saying

you got to bury that. You got to put that under the

ground. In one he's speaking life, in

the other he says put it in the ground.

And the wisdom is knowing the difference, knowing what needs

to be resurrected and what needs to be buried.

Honey, there might be some different remains in your life,

different categories of bones in your life, but you need the

wisdom of God to know what needs to be brought back together and

resurrected and what needs to be buried and departed with God.

We Why? Because if we get it confused

and you try to resurrect what God told you to bury there,

you're inviting contamination back in your life.

But if you try to bury what God wants to resurrect, you're

missing out on your miracle. And so there's no ambiguity in

the text. This is clearly not something

God is restoring. This is something God has

secured. The victory, judged, defeated,

declared, finished. Bury Israel, bury the dead.

If you'll stand with me this morning, we are all standing on

the ground. The victories that's been

granted to us over past struggles and where God has

moved in and brought down some barriers in our life.

Sometimes, Bishop, though, there's Richard.

There's remnants of old thoughts, remnants of old

wounds, remnants of old habits still lingering, dead, still

lingering. But if I don't address them,

they make it. They, they might affect my, my

mind, could pollute my spirit mostly it could be a blockade of

separation to his presence. What are you saying this

morning, then, Mr. McGee? I'm saying this.

Somebody needs to grab a shovel today and you need to go back to

the battlefield and you need to deal with the remains.

Don't revisit what God has killed unless you tend on

burying it as you visit it. Yeah.

Come on. Yes.

Stop entertaining what he's already defeated.

Yes. Come on.

Come on. My my Grandpa Weisenberg used to

have a saying. You'd always say this talking

about whenever people, you know, got into argument or there was

some type of, you know, disagreement and just talking

about, you know, the old saying about burying the hatchet.

Grandpa always said this. Kevin Adams, he says if you bury

the hatchet and you can still see the handle, you didn't bury

it. What's that mean?

You left something exposed? We're not entertaining shallow

graves today because according to Scripture, the enemy isn't

completely defeated when the enemy falls.

Victory is complete when the dead bodies are buried and

ultimately when his glory comes back to the place.

If we bow our heads here this morning, Sir, ma'am, I know, I

know, we have different guests with us today.

And I may not know you personally or even maybe perhaps

even much formally, but you've walked in here like the rest of

us has walked in here that we've had some dogs in our past.

We've had some opposition, we've had some enemies, we've had some

adversaries that that perplexed and frustrated our lives.

We, we followed some of those dogs.

We've allowed them to enter our life and cause harm and, and

intimidate and mess with our minds and cause pain and

suffering and woe. And God has come in like a

knight on a White Horse and shining armor, and he's

slaughtered and he's put, he's put to the ground.

Some of those things that had the greatest influence and

impact on us. We walked away celebrating and

crying out the victory. Only a few days from them

walking along in the same area and tripping over an arm, you

hear me tripping over a body. It's dead, but it's still there.

It's still composing, it's corrupting, it's contaminating.

Sir, ma'am, God wants you to live in victory.

God wants you to live in victory.

God doesn't want you to be in the merry go round of VV.

Defeat, victory, defeat, victory, defeat, victory,

defeat. He has higher hopes of that than

that for you today. If you've ever dealt with

anything, you've ever contended with anything and God's brought

victory to your life again. And I know maybe I should have

brought a bunch of shovels up here this morning, but today you

just might need to get a shovel and say I'm, I'm going to bury

this. I don't need to see this.

It's no advantage to me. It's no advantage to me just to

have this laying around. It's no advantage to me to have

this in ice distance or the aroma of this decay.

And it's no advantage to me to have it like that.

I just, I just need to, I just need to bury it in the ground.

I'm not going to put up a marker for a memorial to go back on a

certain day. And no, no, no, no, no, I'm, I'm

just going to cause a marker to indicate we're, we're going to

bury something here. We're going to put it in the

ground and we're going to leave it.

God's brought the victory, but he asked me to deal with it.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you're here today and you have not the

Spirit of the Lord, you're not filled with his Spirit, that

glory is not entered into your life.

Let me tell you, Calvary has taken place.

Victory has been secured for each and every one of us, but

perhaps today you need to be buried in the lovely name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps you need to be buried.

The Bible says it's for the remission, the removal, the

remittal of our sins. He says when we do that, you

shall receive that. The gift of the Holy Ghost, you

shall receive the gift of His Spirit, the glory.

The glory comes, the glory comes, but dead bodies got to be

buried. Dead bodies got to be buried.

Or can you begin to talk to the Lord right now, today?

Help me, Lord, can someone just begin to talk to him?

Cry out, Lord, help me. Help me, Lord, to be

disciplined. Help me, God, not to leave some

things undone, Some things, Lord, undone.

No, Lord Jesus. God, we're going to, we're going

to put together the plan. God, we're going to bury, Lord

Jesus, some things today, we're going to bury some things today,

some old concepts, some old ideas, some old things that we

would use to participate in. Lord, God, that was really

destruction to our souls and destruction to our lives and to

our marriages. Lord, we're going to put them to

rest today. We're going to lay them aside

today. So our man, God's reaching for

you this morning. Maybe you would like to come to

an altar of prayer today and said, God, I know you secured

some victories in my life, but God, I'm here today.

My hands on the shovel today, God.

My hands on the. I'm going to turn over a piece

of earth this morning. I'm going to bury some things.

I don't want to see that anymore.

I don't want to think of that anymore.

I don't want to be involved with that anymore.

I'm going to lay it to rest today, God.

I'm going to lay it to rest today, O God.

Hallelujah, Brother Mason, Amen. As we go to the Lord right now,

let his glory fill this place again.

Yes, God. Come on, Sir, ma'am, you can

bring your attention to the Lord.

You can bring your shame, your guilt to the Lord.

You can bring the the perplexion of your your family, if you will

dynamic that may be disruptive. Bring it all to the Lord today.

Bring your diagnosis, bring your disease, bring your sickness.

Whatever your GOG is today, whatever your GOG is, bring it

today. God can give victory and we can

parry the body.