Getting Your Hopes Up
Ezekiel 37:1-14
This morning I want to talk to you about the Christian virtue of hope. But before I do, I want to warn you that it’s easy to think about, talk about or sing about hope and still miss its reality.
Hank Williams is a name synonymous with country music. In his brief, tragic life, he wrote thousands of songs, performed in front of maybe millions of people, defining country before country was cool. One CD anthology of his work is entitled “Turn Back the Years” and consists of 3 CDs: Drinkin’ Lovin’ and Prayin’—3 themes that still define much of modern country music. His most famous “prayin’” song is “I Saw the Light” in which he sang, “I saw the Light, I saw the Light, no more in darkness, no more in night….Praise the Lord, I saw the Light.” The words seemed to express a joy that most Christians experience when they put their hope in Jesus Christ as the Light of their lives. But Hank Williams never personally experienced the hope he sang about. Toward the end of his life, Williams was so drunk one night in San Diego that he stumbled off stage after finishing only two songs in the first show of a two-show gig. Minnie Pearl and the promoter’s wife drove him around town trying to sober him up enough to do the second show. They tried to get him to sing along with them to revive him. He sang only one verse of "I Saw the Light" before stopping. "Minnie," Williams said, "I don’t see no light. There ain’t no light."
One of the great tragedies of Hank Williams’ life was that he could write about and sing about a hope he didn’t possess.
You and I face the same danger today. You can read the words of hope in the Bible, sing the precious hymns of hope as loud as anybody else, yet still remain blind to the hope that Jesus Christ can give you. You can lose hope for your marriage or family, lose hope in the Bible or the church, even lose hope in God Himself. You can sink into the dark hopelessness that cries out, “I don’t see no light. There ain’t no light.”
I want to talk to you today about how to find hope, either for the first time or the fiftieth time. We’re going to look at a vision given to the nation of Israel during perhaps their most hopeless moment in their history. We’re going to see how God helped them get their hopes up and how God can help us get our hopes back up again. Turn with me please to Exekiel 37:1-14.
PRAYER
To begin with, let’s get our bearings in this section of the Bible. Ezekiel is one of what are known as the major prophets (because of its size.) His ministry spanned the years just before and just after the Babylonian exile of Jerusalem and the rest of the nation of Judah.
His first messages (1-32) predict God’s judgment and the exile, along with several prophesies concerning individual nations.
His second set of messages ( 33-39, which include the one we’ll read today) are given during the exile, and are meant to revive Israel’s hope in God. The final chapters (40-48) of Ezekiel describe God’s blueprint for Israel’s future. The book of Ezekiel is full of both warning and promise, both judgment and hope. Our passage this morning is meant to bring hope to these defeated, discouraged people. How?
First of all, Ezekiel’s vision faces a sober reality: Life can seem hopeless. (v. 1-3)
Have you ever felt hopelessness slither into your heart? I recently read about a young lawyer who descended into depression. Things were going so poorly for him that his friends kept all knives and razors away from him for fear he could commit suicide. In fact, during this time he wrote in his diary, “I am now the most miserable man living. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell. I fear I shall not.”
There is no denying that no matter how optimistic you try to be, there are times in life when everything seems hopeless. Ezekiel’s vision paints a very vivid picture of the hopelessness of the nation of Israel.
There is an inescapable eeriness to this vision. Ezekiel is transported by the Spirit (it’s unclear whether in his mind or physically) into a large, dark valley full of human bones. Imagine the shock of finding yourself ankle deep in skeletons and skulls, lying everywhere you look. As he staggers through the grisly scene, he notices these bones are very dry, indicating that they have been dead for a long time.
The questions must flood Ezekiel’s mind: what am I doing here? Where am I? Who were all these dead people? Then the Lord speaks to Ezekiel, not giving answers, but asking a question: Son of man, can these bones live?
How would you answer? Have you ever seen dead dry bones spring back to life? To be sure, during this time of year we see a lot of skulls and skeletons dancing and lighting up Halloween decorations. But that couldn’t really happen---could it? In the middle of a surely hopeless situation, Ezekiel’s reply is faintly hopeful: O Lord God, You know. It doesn’t look too likely, Lord, and I certainly cannot see how, but You’re really the only Person Who can answer that question.
In vs.11 the Lord will interpret these bones in Ezekiel’s vision as symbolizing His people, Israel living in exile, with no human hope of ever returning home again. It looks as if they will never live to see God’s promise fulfilled—you remember, the promise that Israel would possess this land and be His special people. From a strictly human standpoint it looks hopeless.
Life can seem hopeless. You’ve been there, haven’t you? You’ve felt the cold hand of hopelessness rest on your shoulder, tempting you to call it quits, inviting you to give up your dreams, grow up and face the facts, get real---there really is no light of hope.
But is that really true? Can these bones live again?
O Lord, You know.
When life seems hopeless, it’s time to turn to the Lord. When you walk among the bones of your destroyed hopes, it’s time to look to Jesus, and at least entertain the possibility that He can bring hope even when life turns hopeless. With God, it’s always too soon to give up hope.
The young lawyer I told you about eventually discovered this for himself. He survived his period of depression, and struggled through many more to finally be elected President of the United States—a chap by the name of Abraham Lincoln.
There’s no denying that life can seem hopeless, but in those times we should do as Ezekiel did, as the nation of Israel did---look to the Lord, Who alone can offer us hope. But how does He give us hope in these seemingly hopeless situations? Ezekiel’s vision shows us in vs. 4-10 (read).
This scene gets stranger by the minute. God commands Ezekiel to preach to this bunch of dead bones. This probably seems stranger to you than it does to me, since I’ve had times when I wondered if I was preaching to the dead!
But seriously---dead people don’t hear. Skeletons don’t have ears. Why in the world would you preach to dead bones? Why would you call out in this valley of death O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord!
Because God’s Word brings hope to the hopeless.
God assures Ezekiel that He will resurrect these bones, put muscle and skin on them and breath in them. You just preach, and I’ll do the rest, Zeke.
So the prophet starts to speak, and the weirdness ratchets up another level. First a rattle among the bones, then they rise up and start connecting to one another. As Zeke’s eyes grow wider, muscles and tissue begin to cover the bones, and finally skin wraps itself around the bodies of these dead people. But there is no spirit in them---just empty bodies, standing like zombies in the valley.
Then God commands Ezekiel preach to the wind, that the spirit will enter these bodies. Every Jew who read this immediately equated the wind= the breath of life.
Ge 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
In the Hebrew language, the word rûah= breath/wind/spirit. As Ezekiel preaches to the wind, the Holy Spirit gives life to these bodies, and they, too, become living souls.
In vs. 12-14 God explains this resurrection symbolizes how He will raise the nation of Israel back from their spiritual death and bring them back to the land of Promise. Though it looks like it’s all over for them, God gives them hope that He can restore life to them.
Why would you call out in this valley of death Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe on these that they may live?
Because God’s Spirit brings hope to the hopeless.
There is hope here for the people to return from exile. Some even see an OT description of the hope of the resurrection from the dead. But the main point here is that this vision connects God’s Word and God’s Spirit to the hope of God’s people. You and I need to make this same connection.
A little over a month before he died, the famous philosopher and atheist Jean-Paul Sartre declared he often said to himself, “I know I shall die in hope.” Then in profound sadness, he would add, “But hope needs a foundation.”
Hope needs a foundation or it’s just wishful thinking. You can hope for anything, but if your hope is not grounded in reality, it is only a matter of time before it evaporates. Whether your hope is in money, health, the government, other people, or just trying to convince yourself that everything will be OK, none of these things are solid foundations for hope. Ezekiel’s vision gives us the only sure foundation for a hope that will stand forever: the Word of God and the Spirit of God.
How sure a foundation is the Word of God?
Is 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
Mt 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
The Word of God revealed in the pages of the Bible is solid truth you can depend on to stand when all else fails. His Word is what our hope of forgiveness, our hope of peace, our hope of life and our hope of heaven is built on. As surely as His Word comes true for Israel, His Word will always be true for you and I as well.
How sure a foundation of hope is the Spirit of God?
2 Co 1:21-22 21Now He…22…also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee= put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (NIV)
Eph 1:13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
God Himself takes up residence in the life of a Christian, filling us with hope that the same God Who saved us will keep us, will strengthen us, will guide us and help us to keep going all the way to heaven. As surely as God’s Spirit continued to work in the people of Israel, His Spirit will continue to work in us as well.
Leigh Richmond, in his "Dying Cottager," tells of his last visit to the death-bed of a young convert that he had led to Jesus. He asked the girl in the valley of the shadow what was her hope for eternity.
Putting her thin, wasted fingers on the Bible that lay beside her she said, "Christ here!" Then, placing her nigh transparent hand on her heart she said, "Christ here!" And then pointing upward, she said, "And Christ there!" Glorious hope!
The Christ you find in the Bible, the Christ you find in your heart, the Christ Who is building a home for you in heaven---this is the sure foundation of our hope. Is He your foundation for hope this morning?
Vaclav Havel, the Czechoslovakian poet/President, spoke these words after years of suffering oppression and persecution: “I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well.
Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart…I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big a gift as life itself.
Now let me ask you this morning: is your hope real, or is it just wishful thinking? Is the flame of hope burning brightly in your life, or are you trapped in the darkness of despair?
“Minnie I don’t see no light. There ain’t no light.”
But Hank was terribly, tragically wrong. The light of hope is real because Jesus is real, and He can give you real hope right now, if you will come to Him. In His darkest hour of death, He brought you and I hope by dying for our sins on the Cross Even death cannot destroy our hope, because on Easter Sunday morning, He rolled back the stone and walked out alive to give us abundant, eternal life. He holds out hope to you, whoever you are, whatever your circumstances, if you will come and receive it this morning. Will you?
