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.
But God spoke to him and said, "No, Ezekiel, this is the right group.. your brothers and sisters in the Babylonian exile. They are the ones who are to hear your word of hope."
Now that should have been the end of the conversation, right? When God speaks to us we just automatically do what He says. RIGHT! Well, Ezekiel wasn't all that satisfied with the situation...especially as it pertained to him.
So he replied, "Oh, sure God. It's easy for you to talk about hope... and about what needs to be said to these people...because you don't have to face them. I'm the one they're going to laugh at when I talk about hope. And in their state of mind, they could do a lot worse than laugh at me."
Now as a pastor I can relate to Ezekiel and what he faced. It is difficult to stand up here and proclaim God's word when it is a hard thing that needs to be said. Many say they like the preacher to tell it like it is...as long as it applies to someone else.
But I find it more difficult to try to bring hope in the midst of hard and trying times...when people are being stretched to the limit...when they have come to the place where they are so despondent that they don't even want to hear a word of hope, because they wouldn't believe it if it did come.
And why wouldn't they respond to such a message? Because they have come to the place where they don't believe things will ever turn out right. They've given up hope...and that is the most desperate and difficult place to be in.
Hopelessness can make us do things we normally wouldn't think of doing...it can make us act much differently than we may normally act. And for the person who tries to bring a message of hope to those who are at their wits end...man, look out.
Talk about the horse who bites the hand that feeds it! ... And what if it doesn't work out exactly the way you try to tell them it will...or the way they think they hear it?
Well, God deals very gently with Ezekiel, and says to him, "If you get laughed at, (or worse) that's just part of the job. Your prophetic responsibility isn't to establish or to control the response of the people to what you say...
Your job is simply to tell them what I lead you to say. God says, I'll take the responsibility for the how valid the message is. And I just want to say that the same is true for each of us. When God leads us to speak a word to someone, or to witness to them about Christ, or whatever it may be...we must understand the same principle.
The reason so many people fail to share their faith with others...the reason so many refuse to share a word of truth...or even a word of encouragement is because they are worried that it won't be accepted... or they won't respond as we would like. But that's not our responsibility.
First off, we have to be sure that it's God who is speaking to us, guiding us to a certain person. But once we know that, we're to speak that word...and then leave the results to God.
Well, Ezekiel didn't do anything rash or rushed. He thought about the matter for a while...and tried to imagine how in the world things could ever be right for these poor captives.
And while he was trying to reason this all out, he had a prophetic vision in which God showed him how hopeless situations can indeed become hopeful in the power of God.
Suddenly, Ezekiel is aware of the presence of God just completely surrounding him, and he is transported right out to the middle of a huge plain that was covered as far as he could see, in every direction with bones.
And he didn't have to look all that close to see that they were human skeletons...and they were parched by long exposure to the relentless sun. What a feeling of despair must have come over him as he envisioned the obvious tragedy that must have taken place here.
He might very well have been standing on the sight of some battle where thousands of people had been killed. This would be a logical explanation because that is exactly what that kind of situation would result in. But that was not where these bones came from.
Now, while Ezekiel was thinking of the sadness and loss of whatever could have caused such a tragedy...God asked him one of those divine trick questions..."Son of man, can these bones live?"
Now how would you react if you were there in the presence of God and were asked such a question? I bet Ezekiel wanted so much to say, "Yea RIGHT! Bones come back to life all the time." But of course he didn't.
Instead he gave an appropriate and respectful answer, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know." We need to remember Ezekiel's answer. There may come a day when God will speak to you, and ask you about some seemingly hopeless situation. This is the right answer to give.
Ezekiel had been having a tough time trying to muster encouragement to his people on the basis of divine hope. Now, in his vision, God is telling him to prophesy to these dry bones.
I bet he was wondering, at least at first, if this was some kind of punishment where God was saying, "If you think the exiles are a tough crowd, let me show you something." From an audience that is emotionally and spiritually dead, Ezekiel has to move to an audience that is physically dead. (That's worse than I have it)
Again, remember that God is giving Ezekiel his message...the prophet doesn't have to dream up something, or try to figure out for himself what this is all about. And what he is told to say to the bones is this: That God is going to make breath come into you...then you will know that I am the Lord.
In his vision, Ezekiel tells those bones exactly what God told him to say...and an eerie, unsettling thing began to happen. There was a rattling sound, and all the bones came together.
And you know the rest...probably from that old spiritual that sings of bones connected to bones...(song)
Well, the bones were reconnected and restructured from the inside out until they were flesh and blood human beings again...but yet there was something wrong....they weren't yet living. According to v. 8 "there was no breath in them."
There was still more prophesying to do. And when Ezekiel spoke forth those divinely inspired words breath entered into those lifeless bodies and, as we see in verse 10, "...they came to life and stood up on their feet."
God had asked Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" And Ezekiel didn't know that they could...it seemed impossible. But they did...and standing there in the middle of that plain surrounded by new life that had been created from what had been dead...Ezekiel knew just how powerful the hand of God could be.
And he also realized the identity of these people...they were the people of Israel.
From this vision...from this clear reminder of the power of God, he was to go back to his hopeless feeling brothers and sisters and give them the Word from the Lord. READ vs 12 14
Part of coming back to life for the Israelites was a promise that they could return to their homeland...and that was a part of what God promised in their restoration.
That's a nice story...but the question still remains for us today. Can dry bones live? You tell me. Tell me about your ability to love..for some of you here that is a dry bone. It is something that you thought was gone...impossible to reactivate, at least under the conditions you have to face.
After months or even years of trials, after a disappointment, or a loss, maybe a divorce. To love means to be vulnerable...and it means pain. And that ability seems to be lost.
But dry bones can live...in communion with God and with the fellowship of God's people...and maybe in the presence of a caring person who invited your love...you knew that one day that love, and the ability to love were still alive inside you. What a glorious discovery!
Can dry bones live? Have you ever been overtaken and seemingly destroyed by a life draining emotion like grief...or depression, beyond the hope of recovery?
Have you ever felt so overcome with such a loneliness or despair that you were sure you would never get over it? Then something happened. Somehow you knew that God wasn't dead, or just standing idly by in the time of your pain.
You heard the word of hope, and before long the Spirit of God was stirring in your soul...and you found that you could not only cope, but also you could live...you could !really„Ç live!
You found that the things that once held you could not steal your life from you permanently. You could laugh again. You could celebrate your independence again. You could face any crisis without giving in to the cold and deadly grip of emotional bondage. There is hope!
Can dry bones live? What about it? Haven't we have all been wiped out spiritually...and known that at the very depths of our heart that we were just as dead as those dusty, dry bones?
Sure, we stay with church attendance...we may go to Bible study...we may make attempts to pray. But we also know that we are not making any contact with the living God. Part of us has died, and we know it.
But the good news is...dry bones can live! Paul proclaimed to the Romans in 8:11, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you."
If you are truly saved, then the same Spirit that raised Christ is dwelling in you...and that means that you have the power to rise above any circumstance of life that may be hindering you or holding you in bondage.
But it does demand a conscious choice on your part...to allow God to work through you...to make those dry bones live.
For years, "The Wide World of Sports" television program opened by showing the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Remember that? Well, the "agony of defeat" was illustrated with a painful ending to an attempted ski jump.
The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the jump, but then for no apparent reason, he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure.
What viewers didn't know was that he chose to fall rather than finish the jump. Why? As he explained later, the jump surface had become to fast, and midway down the ramp he realized that if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground beyond the safe sloping area. And this could have been fatal.
As it was, the skier suffered no more than a headache from the tumble. The truth we can learn from this is...to change your course in life can be a dramatic and sometimes painful undertaking. But the change is better than a fatal landing at the end.
God wants to resurrect some dry bones...He wants to meet us where we are...whether that is in the midst of very difficult and trying circumstances, as some of you are facing...or even if you just realize that your direction in life is not the one God has chosen for you.
Dry bones can live!
