Beloved this morning I want to make a disclaimer and that is beloved that God can bring dead things back to life. See beloved this is a missing jewel in the church world today, the drawing of a man or a woman that would dare come to God and boldly ask for the impossible to come to pass. Today church is filled with very spiritual intellectual religious super spiritual sinners rather than God fearing, bible believing Christians. We serve a God that is able to move mountains, raise the dead, heal the sick, allow the lame to walk and the blind to see but most of all we must always keep in mind that we serve a God who is a miracle worker. A miracle beloved is something that God can do, that we cannot do.
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.
Beloved we serve a miracle working God.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
1 The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. 3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.” 4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. 9 Also He 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.” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. 11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. 14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’”
Here in our scripture beloved we have the resurrection of souls from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, to a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine life, by the power of divine grace. This speaks to us of the resurrection power of God in those areas of our lives that are dead, that have lost hope that have been afflicted by the sting of sin. And in this scripture we have the promises of God. This morning there are some if not all yet maybe even one precious soul that’ll hear this lifeline promise and that beloved is that God can speak into dead things and cause them to live.
Beloved only after a disaster can one be resurrected.
1st Point “Dry bones”
In our opening text we have the prophet Ezekiel listening to the word of God given to him, he is taken in the spirit into a place where there are many dry dead bones. These bones have no strength in them, if you walked on these bones they would crack into pieces. No strength, no life no hope. So God takes the man of God to a place and shows him all these dry bones. Think with me for a moment, this can symbolize many things, our faith, our families, our marriages, our vision, beloved we can look out in this city and see a sea of dead things that need life.
1 The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. 3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”
These bones have been there for a long time, they were brittle, weak, they had no strength, and yet here is God in His majesty that takes the man of God into a valley of dead dry bones. Here we have this truth, God takes the man of God into a situation that bothers God, here we have a community of dead people, they are fighting a losing battle, they are walking aimlessly and they are losing their lives and are going to be left for dead.
Look at our lives for a moment, we were once like these dead bones, we were weak and dismantled, dysfunctional and had no power to do anything within our own lives. And yet God would take a man and place him into a valley of dead things and ask the question, Can these bones live?” There is no hope all seems lost, defeated and my marriage is in shambles and my kids are acting up, maybe medical conditions I’m sick, I just got diagnosed with something I never thought possible, I’m a Christian Lord why me? Maybe financial situations have just hit you and the demon snake, the python is trying to squeeze the life of God right out of you and put you in the valley of dead things, whatever it is, it has sucked the life of God right out of you and God wants to breath life back into you.
Beloved listen to me, look at your life, your prayer life, is it dry? How about your relationship with God and others are they dry? With your family, your kids, your coworkers are they dry? Do you need God to speak life back into those areas? These are real issues even with the Christian.
“A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.”
Proverbs? ?17:22? ?NKJV??
We need these bones to have life again, your heart, your prayer, your mind and soul you need God to breathe upon it once again. The question that is asked in our scripture is this, can these dry bones live?
We have prayers if we are honest that we stopped praying because we did not see results and yet we have a great example in our bible of persistence prayer, We have Daniel who prayed for 3 weeks straight without fail, he was going through it, he was struggling, there was a spiritual battle but he continued, Jesus He was beaten, He was nailed to a cross and yet He prayed for the lives of those who were killing Him. These are extreme situations and yet they continued, beloved our situations are extreme to us, and yes they are our reality to us but no we should not stop the flow of prayer so God can breathe life into those dead things.
2nd Point “The promise of revival”
4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. 9 Also He 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.” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
Beloved in our bible God over the course of many verses has spoken the promises of bringing dead things back to life.
In scripture we have God who raises Hannahs son from the dead, we have Jesus who raises the little girl, He also raises Lazarus, and He heals lepers who are dead at heart and beloved these promises are still available to us this morning, God can still raise dead things.
Our bible speaks to us of the miracle work of God and all that He would do to raise up His army as a sign of His power, think with me for a moment this morning beloved, God wants to revive us again.
Think of how this may have looked, God gave the prophet something to do. God commanded him to speak, to prophesy to the dry, dead bones. By all outward observation this was a vain and foolish act. This was impossible, these bones have been here for years, nothing can fix this.
Maybe this is you whatever it may be you think God cannot fix things, beloved God is still into miracles today.
Spurgeon said this: “If we want revivals, we must revive our reverence for the Word of God. If we want conversions, we must put more of God’s Word into our sermons; even if we paraphrase it into our own words, it must still be his Word upon which we place our reliance, for the only power which will bless men lies in that.”
Ezekiel could only preach this message full of faith in God. Yet if he was confident that he spoke the word of the Lord, he knew God’s word had supernatural power. Beloved you need to believe that the word of God holds supernatural power to do what we cannot do. You are petitioned to speak life into dead things.
God promised to fill the dry bones with life. He promised to bring flesh upon those bones and cover them with skin. God would make the once dead and dry bones live.
This was a work of revival; restoring life to something that at one time had life. This was not the creation of life from nothing; it was the restoration of life to something that had been long dead.
This was God’s declaration. The bones could never create the life within themselves. As the word of the Lord was proclaimed over them, they received God’s promise of life once again.
The life would be marked by breath living once again in these bones.
Beloved I was dead at one time, my marriage was dead at one time, my future was dead at one time and maybe you feel as if your in this position, God didn’t save us to leave us for dead, He saved us so that we can be an example of life being breathed once again into something that was once dead. He breathe life back into my marriage, into my family, into my future, into my ministry God breathe life back into something that was dead and beloved you too can have this. Christian we forgot some things, we forgot people, we forgot to have faith in the things we prayed for, lets be honest, we forgot was it was like to love God and enjoy it. God wants to fill us with the breathe of life once again. This is His promise. To human perception this proclamation of the word of God was foolish, yet Ezekiel obeyed.Beloved will you obey?
After the bones were assembled, muscles and tissue came upon the bones. The bones were full of activity, yet still did not yet have the breath of life in them. The reviving of the dry bones clearly happened in stages.
· Stirring of the bones.
· Assembly of the bones.
· Sinews and flesh upon the bones.
· Skin upon the tissues covering the bones.
· Awaiting the breath of God.
Beloved you have to speak this into your situation, speak life.
3rd Point “Standing as the Army of God”
10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. 11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. 14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’”
It is a wonderful thing to be a part of something great when God is involved, I began to look at this and saw such a promising truth. Think with me for a moment on what God says in His word. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!
Is this not what we have felt at times of failure, O Lord I’m lost, my hope is lost, there are times in our lives that we feel as if we are far from God in every way. Maybe lack of faith, sin, doubt, un-forgiveness you choose. God says I will revive my children Israel. I will revive my people.
Think with me for a moment and this gave me such an excitement when I continued to read,
After Ezekiel’s faithful proclamation of God’s message, the work of reviving the dry bones was completed. The breath of God came into the reanimated bodies, and they stood upon their feet. An exceedingly great army.
“There is no hope for humanity in man. But these dry bones can live. By the Word, and the Spirit of God, men can be reborn; and at last healed of their separations, and united under one King.” (Morgan)
“Decayed Churches can most certainly be revived by the preaching of the Word, accompanied by the coming of the heavenly ‘breath’ from the four winds. O Lord, send us such revivals now, for many of thy Churches need them.” (Spurgeon)
An exceedingly great army: The bones were not revived to become a group of spectators or to live for their own comfort. They became an army, and an exceedingly great one. They lived to act under the orders of the one who gave them life.
And so we are called to a commission that cannot be ignored. Look upon the dry bones and with confidence speak life. We were once dry bones that was given life and we are to go out with a power undeniable. And so beloved speak with faith and confidence. Continue to pray for those family members that you have stopped praying for, that friend that you gave up on, your son or daughter, your marriage, your future spouse, don’t stop and continue and by faith believe.
God will powerfully reveal Himself to you through this great work of revival and restoration to this land. God said I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live: The breath in the revived bones was more than the breath of human life; it was the Spirit of the living God.
Beloved with this spirit comes power and the army of God is filled with just that. See beloved we are called to such a great task and God is full of grace and forgiveness to revive us once again.
As we close if we want to see the miracle of God as God’s servant we must first:
know that the bones are dead and dry and then walk amongst the dead, then speak forth God’s word. We must have almost a foolish confidence in God’s Word, to understand that the Spirit works in process and must recognize that the work of the Holy Spirit is essential. As God’s servant must boldly pray for the Spirit to move and must speak in the power of faith and notice every evidence of the Spirit’s work. We must look for God’s people to be revived into an army of service and must have an unshakable faith and never say that hope is lost.
One kingdom under one king.
