Dry bones! Live again!

It doesn't get much more dead than Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones! Familiar with it? In the 37th chapter of his book, the prophet tells of being set in the middle of a valley that was full of bones, bleached and dried by the sun. The flesh that clothed the bones is gone. The sinews that connected the bones - gone. Any semblance of life- gone. There in that scene of absolute desolation, God asks him, "Can these bones live?" What a question. How do would you respond to it?

With natural understanding, one would have to say, "The day for life in these bones is long since past! No, Lord, I they won't live again." Ezekiel chooses a different response. “Lord God, only you can answer that.” Ezekiel 37:3 It's not exactly a statement full of faith, but at least it allows for the possibility of life, however remote. Sometimes that is all the faith we have, just enough to allow for a possibility. According to Jesus, that is more than enough.

Now comes the test. God said, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!" Ezekiel 37:4 NIV The man of God was commanded to do something that would have looked like the height of folly to any observer. "Preach my Word to these dry bones!" God said. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, Ezekiel spoke the improbable, into a situation of the impossible. And as he spoke, those bones rattled and moved! They assembled into skeletons, began to be connected, then covered with flesh. As he continued to preach, the Spirit of God swept over the corpses and "breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army." Ezekiel 37:10

It's quite a vision, isn't it? Shocking, yet captivating. It was God's message to His people who thought all hope was gone. These bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’ Ezekiel 37:11 The man of God needed courage, boldness, and vision to draw life back to a 'dead' nation. It was a work beyond his, or anyone's for that matter, natural ability. Who can make bones live again? That is why God said, "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.’” Ezekiel 37:13-14

What seems dead, beyond hope, to you?
Is your marriage, which once was filled with life and love, just a barren, dead thing now?
Are your dreams for the future, hopes to make a real difference, rattling around in your mind, dried up and dead?
Is your church, once alive with the Spirit, a place of skeletons and ghosts of things past?
Is your spiritual life nothing but bones seeming dead to the Spirit of God?

God is putting the question to you - "Can these bones live?" In asking the question, He is stirring faith, be it ever so slight. As His Spirit stirs in us, let us become bold like the prophet, speaking the Words of life to a dead situation. "Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!"

Nothing is so thrilling as seeing God bring life back, breathing His healing into a person or a situation that all have concluded is beyond hope.
So, hear the Word of the Lord! Hear it yourself, then speak it.
______________________

Days Of Elijah- Mark, Robin- Integrity Music, Inc.

These are the days of Ezekiel,
The dry bones becoming as flesh;
And these are the days of Your servant David,
Rebuilding the temple of praise.
These are the days of the harvest,
The fields are as white in the world,
And we are the laborers in the vineyard,
Declaring the word of the Lord.

Behold He comes riding on the clouds,
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call;
Lift your voice, it's the year of jubilee,
Out of Zion's hill salvation comes.

© 1997 Daybreak Music, Ltd. (Admin. by Integrity Music, Inc.)
CCLI License No. 810055