Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones
Story: Girolamo Savonarola was one of the greatest preachers of the fifteenth century.
He preached in the beautiful cathedral of Florence in Italy, which contained a magnificent marble statue of the Virgin Mary.
At the very start of his ministry there, Savonarola noticed an elderly woman who used to come and pray regularily before that statue of the Virgin Mary.
One day, he took aside an elderly priest who had been serving in the cathedral for many years and said,
"Look how devoted this woman is. She comes every day to offer prayers to the blessed Mother of Jesus. What a marvellous act of faith."
But the elderly priest replied,
"Do not be deceived by what you see. Many years ago when the sculptor needed a model to pose for this statue of the blessed Mother, he hired a beautiful young woman to sit for him. This devout worshipper you see here everyday is that young woman. She is worshipping who she used to be."
We cannot rest on past acheivements
God is not interested on what we USED to be or on the externals in our lives.
He is interested in our present attitudes.
Our OT passage this evening I believe primarily with our present our attitudes, not our past ones or our future ones
For me the Vision sums up three attitudes that mankind can have to God.
Two of them bring DEATH and the last alone is LIFE.
1. The first part of the vision is the vision of the Dry Bones
The vision open in verse 1 with Ezekiel standing in a valley full of dry bones
There is no life or even a pretence of life in these bones
This symbolises for me a coldness and indifference to God.
It talks to me of selfish living, summed up by the famous expression:
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
Which is itself an amalgamation of two biblical sayings:
The first is from Ecclesiastes
Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry Ecclesiastes 8. 15 (AV)
And the second from Isaiah
Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die. Isaiah 22. 13 (AV)
But the dry bones also reminds us that there are times where we allow a coldness to creep into our lives towards God.
We don’t notice it at first but as it creeps up on us it bring death.
2. The second part of the vision is the vision of Lifeless Bodies
Ezekiel, as he stands in the valley of Dry Bones is commanded to prophesy to the bones, and they bones rattle into shape and become lifeless bodies
This for me symbolises the religious man who strives to please God by his own actions.
Religion looks fine on the outside but it is DEAD.
For those of us who are Christians, it challenges us to consider if we have grown lukewarm in our Christian lives.
3. The third part of the vision is the Breath of God
This symbolises for me a Life in tune with God.
Ezekiel is called to prophesy so that the breath of God comes into the lifeless bodies to give them life
Living the way God wants us to live. He wants to give us a new heart.
You can’t find a spiritual life on your own. God has to give it to you.
For the Christian, it symbolises having a right attitude to God, being on fire for him.
The challenge to us today is where are we?
Let us look at this in a bit more detail:
1. The Dry Bones.
Nowadays, particularly in England, there are large numbers of people who are utterly indifference to God
They live just to please themselves.
And at the end of the day there are just scattered pieces of our lives about.
Take a couple of areas.
1. Immorality.
Story: The late Liz Taylor once said in a magazine that she thought she was a very moral person.
She would only sleep with the person she was married too. After seven husbands, that was bit of a joke
Free living and divorce has become so easy that when we are tired of our partner we just change him or her.
Discarded people who become lonely.
Steve Turner wrote a poem, which I think is so apposite:
She said she’d love me for eternity
But managed to reduce it to six months for good behaviour.
She said the future was all ours
But the deeds were made out in her name.
She said we fitted like hand in glove
But when the warm weather came along such accessories weren’t needed.
She said I was the only one who understood her completely,
But when she left me she said I’d understand completely.
2. Immorality goes often hand in hand with drugs and drink.
For in drink and drugs we find places where we can lose our lonliness.
The dry bones symbolise NO HOPE and NO IDENTITY
Story: I recall an old Japanese Patent Attorney, Mr. Kawaguti, saying to me (11.06.91) that if a Japanese businessman is attacked in New York he rarely comes back, whereas a European will.
He concluded that this is because Buddism teaches that there is no after life.
The Japanese, he said are scared of death.
However the Christian, if he puts his trust in the words of Jesus is assured of life after death.
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:1-4)
Perhaps some of us can feel like a person without identity, that you have nothing to distinguish you from any one else.
But I want to tell you that God cares for everyone of us.
He is like a Father just waiting for you to come to Him.
Jesus parable of the Prodigal Son sums up for a man with the DRY BONES ATTITUDE.
The younger son just lives his life up until he runs dry
2. In the the second part of the vision, Ezekiel see the valley full of Lifeless Bodies
This, to me, symbolises religious people, trying to please God by what they do.
They appear to be healthy and well, just like the lifeless bodies of the Vision but they have no life.
They are, as Jesus said, like the whitewashed tombs wonderful on the outside but decaying inside.
Jesus said this to the morally upright teachers of the Law and Pharisees:
“Woe to you teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones. In the same way, on the outside you appear as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy. “(Matt. 23:25 and 28)
Hard words!
God hates religiosity, because it mimicks the real thing
Throughout his ministry here on earth, Jesus condemned the Pharisees unmercilessly.
Why? Because as Jesus said their lives do not conform to the way God wanted them to live.
Speaking of the Pharisees with their rules he said:
4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (Matt.23:4)
There is an old Canadian expression goes:
Your actions are so loud that I can’t hear what you are saying.
In the book of Revelation, Jesus speaks in the first three Chapters to the seven Churches of Asia, each of which had different problems
In Rev. 3:15 and 16 he speaks to the Church at Laodicea says:
I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm neither hot nor cold I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
Lukewarmness speaks of outward signs but no inward change.
THE CRUX OF Bible reading today is that God is interested in OUR ATTITUDES.
He wants a changed HEART.
True Christianity is not about just doing good but about our love and affection for God THAT lead onto Good Works.
Eph. 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
We are saved by Christ, we need by faith to receive it.
Which leads me onto the last part of the Vision
3. Ezekiel sees the bodies full of the Breath from God.
God wants a real CHANGE of HEART in us and he does this by giving us his Holy Spirit
GOD will do it himself.
The prophet Ezekiel, speaking for God said this:
“I will give you a new heart and will put a new Spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. and I will pour my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:26-27
God wants to change us. But we need to RESPOND to him.
As an old preacher, Alun Morris once put it: The HOLY SPIRIT is a gentleman, He does not force himself on us.
God is the OPERATOR in our SALVATION.
All religions look for justification before God. Thatb is being right with God.
All of them - bar one give you rules and regulations to do this
True Christianity believes we can do nothing to earn our salvation.
Rather God is the agent. He has to give us his spirit
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Receive the Holy Spirit." (John 20:22)
That is our choice today.
Are we willing to live a Holy Spirit filled life?
