Preaching Outline 030908
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Hey there. Do you ever have one of those days when you just feel nostalgic? Don’t always know what it is, but I think it was those few days of warmer weather that got me thinking. Whenever it warms up, the memories just come flooding back to me. There is one date in particular that stands out in my mind. August 14, 586 BC as you would date it. That is the day that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.
It was an awful day for the people of Israel and Judah. It was also an especially tough day for me as a prophet of the Almighty God. But then again, I never really had an easy go of it in my career. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that any of the prophets had it easy! No way! I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be Elijah and always have Evil King Ahab and Jezebel breathing down my neck. Or to be Hosea and have to have my wife’s unfaithfulness serve as a lesson to the people about their unfaithfulness to God. Or to be Nathan and have the job of taking the great King David to task when he wandered from God.
But my circumstances were different. I was all set to become a Levitical Priest and to help the people of Israel worship in the temple. I studied for a long time to prepare for this and couldn’t wait until I was 30 and I could finally become a priest and carry out my duties. The problem was that before I turned 30, the Babylonians came in and conquered us. They took many of us away from our homeland and led us to Babylon to live as captives. I was crushed.
But right around the time turned 30, I got another kind of call from God. I was washing in the Kebar River when the Lord appeared to me in a vision and called me, not to the priesthood, but to be a prophet. So I went. I have a lot of memories from my time serving as a prophet. Some are wonderful, many are painful, others I wish I could forget. But whenever I start to feel down, I remember one event in particular and I can’t help but be filled with hope and joy, and feel privileged that I was one of the Prophets of God.
You see, for so long, I had the awful task of proclaiming the truth of God’s judgment upon the people. As we were exiled, many of the people started to think, “Hey maybe this will all be over soon, and we can all go back home before they do anything to the city or the temple.” I don’t blame them for wishing that, I wished it too, believe me!
But it fell to me to remind the people why this was happening. To remind them that their unfaithfulness was the cause of the exile. To say, “Thus says the Lord GOD: A city that sheds blood in her midst, so that her time may come, and that makes idols to defile herself! You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed, and defiled by the idols that you have made, and you have brought your days near, the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all the countries. Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you; your name is defiled; you are full of tumult.” (Ezekiel 22:1-5)
It was my job to be the voice of God to the people. But still, it is hard to constantly say such heartbreaking things to the people you love, even if it is the truth. But then one day, God gave me another message to share. And he gave it to me in the most extraordinary way!
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
Now, if anyone else had asked me can these dead, dried out, bleached out bones can live, the answer would have been obvious, NO WAY! But this was God that was talking to me so I took a deep breath and I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
So I did what I was told, I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. It was extraordinary, but there was no breath in them.
But the Lord took care of that in a way that reminded me of how he created Adam and Eve. When made their bodies and then filled them with breath. God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
I stood there speechless at what I had just seen and heard and wondered what it all meant. Then God said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”
I know God keeps his promises. And that this was a message of grace for a people who needed God’s love. That out of the grave of exile in a foreign land, God would enliven his people who were dead and dried up in sin and shame, hopelessness. And he would still love them, and give them life, and hope, and return to them their homeland.
But the greatest thing about this event was that God showed me just what it means to have his grace and his love. We are all like those dried up bones. On our own we show no hope for saving ourselves, or having any kind of life. We are dried up, bleached out by sin, and shortcomings, and the sting of death. But God worked a miracle in us when he decided to love us, to send the Messiah to save us, to rescue us out of the deathly destiny our sins deserved and promised to place his life-giving spirit within us to give us life, and a promised land, and his undeserved love.
But there is more to my nostalgia than the hope of being returned back to Jerusalem. For me its much more personal. You see, on that terrible day for the people of Israel, that August 14 when the temple was destroyed, something much worse happened to me. I spoke to the people that morning, and when I came home, I found that my wife, the delight of my eyes, (chapter 24) had died. I was destroyed, and it felt as if my heart would stop. It was then that I realized how important it was that my hope in the coming Messiah went deeper that just knowing that he could restore the people to their land. But that in fact, the Messiah must also hold the power to destroy death and restore life as well. I knew that my dear wife died in faith, and that God has the power to make her live in faith again one day.
The thing is, I know he will. I know hat he is a God who forgives our sins and a God who conquers death itself. I know that he is a God who can be trusted and who keeps his promises. And I know he is looking after my dear wife even now, and one day, he will look after me in heaven as well.
We worship a wonderful God. And over the years I have come to appreciate that. That God can take dead dried up bones and give them life and breath. And I have come to realize that every day is a day to celebrate. Because no matter what each day holds. No matter how great, or how awful, the wonderful truth of his grace remains.
And it is summed up so beautifully in that wonderful Psalm 130: “If you O Lord kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand, but with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.”
Well, it’s time for me to take these old bones down the road. Thanks for listening. And remember. Today is a day that God loves you and gives you his life and salvation.
Bye.
