Dry Bones
Ezekiel 37:1-10
April 22, 2012
Have you ever felt like there was no hope? You were hopeless . . . lost . . . You looked at your situation and there was no way out. You were trapped . . . stuck.
There was a security guard at a railroad yard who accidentally locked himself in a refrigeration car one night. He knew the door couldn’t be opened from the inside. He was trapped. He knew would die there, either from the cold or lack of oxygen. The thought of freezing to death concerned him the most. He screamed until his lungs burned, and he banged on the door until his hands were swollen and bruised.
His situation was hopeless. His fate written. He decided his last act would be to record his agonizing death for whoever would eventually find his body. With a pencil, he wrote on the car wall: “It is so cold in here I can hardly stand it.”
After a while he struggled from the corner where he huddled and wrote a second line: “It’s colder still – my fingers are getting numb.” Then later, “I’m slowly freezing to death.”
And ultimately, “These are probably my last words...” By the time he scribbled this final sentence, the writing was almost illegible.
His body was found the next morning, slumped in a corner of the car, he was dead.
The coroner had great difficulty determining the cause of death. He determined there was sufficient ventilation inside the car to allow a man to survive for days. And, since the refrigeration apparatus of the car had been out of order, there was no way the man would have frozen to death.
The temperature inside the refrigerated unit was 56! ("Don’t Tell Me It’s Impossible Until After I’ve Already Done It", by Pam Lontos).
Can we become like that man, who thought he had no hope, who literally imagined himself freezing to death . . . and did? Are we people who have no hope, or a people of hope?
When the odds seem to be going against us, what do we do? Do we just cower down and give up? Do we just see the so-called handwriting on the wall and accept the fact that there’s nothing we can do, so we quit?
Or do we look at the situation and keep battling, keep looking for a way to overcome whatever it is that’s not going our way. We can look at many sporting events and see where a team which was getting crushed somehow came back and won. Maybe it’s a physical illness ... and you were able to come back and live a full life. Maybe it was rejection or abuse, and we were able to overcome it.
Maybe because of all this you’ve been able to dream, to envision a future that in the past you never could. You felt like everything and everyone was against you, but you looked beyond all the outside interferences and you’ve made plans, you’ve allowed yourself to dream to see a future which was good . . . and now you’re working towards attaining that future.
Well, the Israelites were in a bad predicament. In fact, they believed they were stuck in an impossible situation. They had been conquered by the Babylonians. Their cities had been burned to the ground, the temple had been destroyed and the entire nation had been exiled into captivity. All hope seemed lost. Yet God still had a plan. In the midst of this impossible situation God reminded the people through the prophet Ezekial that He is the God of the impossible.
Let’s look at what the Lord told Ezekiel ~
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were VERY DRY.
3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.
6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.
8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’”
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.
Now, unless you’re a magician, this was an impossible situation. How do you bring life to something which is obviously dead? When was the last time you faced what appeared to be an impossible obstacle? Do you remember feeling hopeless?
Verse 1 tells us that the Spirit of God was upon Ezekiel, which basically means Ezekiel had a very, very deep spiritual experience in which God took him somewhere. It could be a physical place, it could be a spiritual vision, nonetheless, God brought Ezekiel to a valley filled with dry bones. The bones represented the Israelites. They had been conquered and exiled and any chance of returning to the good old life, to life as normal were gone. They had to learn a new culture and new way to live away from home, with a foreign people who oppressed them.
Dry bones are as dead as you can get. Ask a doctor and they will tell you, you cannot bring life back to a bunch of disjointed dead bones. There’s no way humanly possible. This is not a story about a doctor resuscitating someone.
This is far, far worse. This is LONG dead. The body is not just dead – it’s gone! Notice that God makes it a point to tell Ezekiel that these bones are VERY DRY! This means, there really is no hope from a human standpoint. You can’t bring like to dead very dry bones! No way! Can these bones represent you and I? Are we those dried up bones? People of no hope, people who have no more wants and desires?
It’s one thing to believe in God for a miracle to heal the sick or even to raise a person who has just died. Remember the story when Lazarus died. Martha was hopeful, but by the 3rd day, hope was gone. She told Jesus “if only you had been here.” Maybe God can raise the dead, but can even God raise dry bones to life?
Situations in life can be like that sometimes can’t they? There may be issues in your life that seem difficult, but you’re trusting in God to get you through. However, as time goes by these situations grow worse. Still there might be hope that they will be resolved. Over time hope fades and at some point dreams die within you and become hopeless situations. Like these dry bones.
Take a good look at Annie Clark. This 2nd grade girl was born with no hands. Yet, she won a penmanship award in the state of Pennsylvania. Annie, as well as her parents could have given up, but there was no way. She’s a confident girl who tutors other kids and wants to be an author. Good for her! Talk about overcoming?
God looks at Ezekiel and asks, “Son of man, can these bones live?" Most of us would give a quick and simple answer, “No way!” Ezekiel replies “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” His answer is hopeless despair.
Are you facing any impossible situations in your life? Are there any dry bones you’re facing? Things that seem absolutely hopeless. Dreams that have long since died and been buried within you.
Ezekiel is told to prophesy to the bones — “Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!” When most people think of prophecy they think it’s like fortune telling or standing out on a street with a sign that says “end of the world near – repent.” Prophesy simply means hearing God’s voice and repeating what He said.
Wouldn’t you have felt a bit funny taking to dry bones? There was a woman who went to a public restroom. As she was in the stall she heard the woman in the stall next to her say, “hello.” A few seconds later, she again asked, with a little irritation, “hello, is anyone there.” The woman politely replied “hello – I’m here.” The voice in the next stall asked “are you coming over this afternoon?” The woman was shocked by the question and asked “Who are you? Do I know you?” The woman in the next stall was silent and then whispered “Frank, I’ll call you right back. There’s some crazy lady talking to me in the next stall.”
You ever see someone talking out loud, and you answer them, then you realize they’re talking with a bluetooth headset? I can’t count how many times I’ve seen people talking to themselves and either answered, or thought they were really weird, until I saw that bluetooth device sticking out of their ear.
We need to speak into hopeless situations the will of God. And maybe we need to allow others to speak and ask for us.
When God reveals His will and plan to us we need to speak those words into the impossible situations in our life. What is God asking you to say to the situation you may be in right now?
With God — valleys of dry bones become armies of righteousness. Impossibilities become possibilities. The perishable become imperishable. The dead come to life. There’s nothing God cannot do.
When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you’re slamming the door in the face of God. There are no hopeless situations. God then tells this to Ezekiel ~
12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”
What word is the Lord speaking to you today. What “grave” is the Lord going to bring you up out of? Would you believe that this morning?! Would you trust that God will not leave you in that valley of dry bones. He desires to raise you to dream new dreams to see your future.
We need to think big thoughts and dream big dreams. God has a plan for your life and He wants to use you. Maybe it’s time to awaken some of those dreams which have been within you. Take God at His word, step out in faith and remember that God is a God of the impossible.
Is there a dream that has died in your life. Have you given up on something you knew was God's plan for your life? God wants to speak to you today. He wants to revive that plan for your life. He wants to create an army of righteousness out of your bones of despair.
When Walt Disney World in Orlando opened in 1974, Mrs. Disney was sitting beside Walter Cronkite. Walt Disney had died a few years earlier. Cronkite leaned over to her and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if Walt were here to see this today.”
Mrs. Disney replied, “If Walt had not first seen, this you would not be seeing it today.”
