Can Dry Bones Live?

CAN DRY BONES LIVE?

EZEKIEL 37:1 14

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall....

According to those who know about such things, this piece of wisdom is a relic thousands of years old. Versions of this nursery rhyme have appeared in 8 European languages.

But in it's early stages, Humpty Dumpty was a riddle. It asked the question: What, when broken, can never be repaired...not even by strong or wise individuals?

Well, as any child knows, the answer is an egg. Regardless of how hard we try, a broken egg can never be put back together again. We simply have to learn to live with the mess.

I think the story of Humpty Dumpty has a modern day application...at least in part. All around us are people who have the feeling that their lives, or the lives of loved ones are damaged beyond repair... things just don't seem to work any more.

Often our lives seem to be out of control. Changes come faster than our ability to cope with them. And broken eggs are probably an accurate and appropriate symbol for what is happening all around us. Everywhere we step we hear the crunch of fragile shells under our feet

There is a Humpty Dumpty story in the Bible...we call it the Fall. Adam & Eve ate the forbidden fruit. They claim the necessary wisdom to be like God. But when the dust settles, Adam & Eve are not perched on some lofty plain...They have fallen.

Nothing they could do would be enough to restore what they lost that day. And that same fate has been handed down to us as well. Regardless of how hard we try, nothing we do can ever put back together the relationship lost with God through the Fall.

But there is an important thing we must remember God is still God. And just as the Scriptures say, "With God nothing shall be impossible"

Even though we could never restore that separation that resulted from Adam & Eve's sin...God in His mercy provided a way for us to have an intimate relationship with God through the blood of Christ.

John 3:16.....He loved us so much that He did the impossible to set us free. But we need to realize that we serve a God that specializes in the impossible...He still works in the realm of the supernatural...and that is what I want to show you this morning.

I want to look at the book of Ezekiel and READ 37:1 14

Ezekiel was a priest as was his father, and he lived during the time of the Babylonian exile. He began his ministry in the 5th year of that captivity, when he was about 30 years old.

When this prophet began his ministry among the Jewish exiles, he found them to be a very sorry, hopeless bunch of people. This was a group of people who felt completely broken because of their separation from their homeland...

They were still stricken with horror at having seen their beloved Jerusalem destroyed...they were now under the control of the cruel Babylonians...but worst of all they felt separated and alienated from God.

They were certain that the "divine human relationship" they had for so long experienced was now broken. And this was a completely devastating thing to them. And I'm sure that there are some of you who may have felt the very same feeling...for whatever reason, that you have been cut off from God.

So many I talk to are facing difficulties and it seems that God is a million miles away. You pray but nothing seems to happen...you don't feel the presence of the Lord in the way you once did...and you really just get discouraged and tired of the rat race of life. That's how the Israelites felt.

Well, Ezekiel had come to give a word of hope in God's name. But he was having a terrible time doing so. Ezekiel was known as a real strange character, but even an off the wall kind of guy like Ezekiel was in touch enough with reality to know that giving hope to these people would be something hard for them to swallow.

Again, this was a people who felt abused and cut off from everything that was essential to them. They were like a person found guilty of a crime who had been put in prison and the key was thrown away.

So Ezekiel had it rough in trying to deal with this situation. I mean what do you say to a people who had just been placed in exile by God Himself? I'm sure it was hard for Ezekiel not to buy into the same perspective the people had...that they were dying individually as well as a nation.

In fact, Ezekiel thought they were onto something. He was all but convinced that they were right and that God had given him a sermon for another group of people...he just hadn't found who they were yet.