Can These Bones Live?
Good morning Maple Grove and welcome to week 13 of our series, ‘Such Things Were Written’
‘Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. They give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises. – Romans 15:4
MAN – this has been an incredible time of study.
I MEAN – the truths we have uncovered, the warning we have been given, and the hope and encouragement that has been planted in our hearts and minds have been (many times) the very things that many of us has needed to hear!
AMEN?!
NOW – we are going to be wrapping up this series next Sunday, in a conversation called, “God Is Great And God Is Good” a conversation that will dive deep into these two primary characteristics of God that are first introduced to us in Genesis 1-3. Man, I am soo looking forward to it.
I am also pumped up about the passage of Scripture from Ezekiel chapter 37 that we are going to unpack this morning.
NOW EZEKIEL – is not a book of the bible that many people are not all that familiar with…
BUT PERHAPS – you may have heard about the crazy vision that God one day gave the prophet Ezekiel, of a valley filled with dry bones.
HEY – checkout this video representation I found this week of this passage in Ezekiel 37… AND LISTEN – the words you will are the actual words of Scripture.
'Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. They give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises. – Romans 15:4
OKAY…
HERE’S – the deal
HERE’S – what I want us to do today 10/13/2020,
DAY 291 of this crazy, insane, difficult, challenging and like no other year.
I WANT US – to uncover, both the powerful truths and the life giving hope and encouragement that God has placed within these 2600 years old words from the prophet Ezekiel?
AND LISTEN - I want to encourage pray to really lean in closely this morning…
BECAUSE – I am convinced that God that some listening to my voice desperately need to hear.
AND HERE IS HOW – I want to attack this conversation, by unpacking 3 statements…
• The Background
• The Vision
• The So What? (“Such things…”)
Prayer
I. The Background
OKAY SO - let’s do a little background work…
AND LISTEN – it is essential for us to understand the context of this vision…
NOW REMEMBER – after King Solomon (David’s son) dies around the year 932 BC the nation of Israel has a civil war AND - as a result is divided into 2 kingdoms…
• The Northern Kingdom (10 tribes, Israel) and
• the Southern Kingdom (2 tribes, Judah).
And this ‘Divided Period’ in the history of God’s people lasts ~ 200 years.
AND THEN - around 720 BC as we saw last week, the Assyrian Empire destroys the Northern Kingdom, and God (when Assyria tries to destroy Judah) defends the city because of the faith and commitments (to purity, to prayer and to the words of the prophets) of King Hezekiah
AND AFTER THIS - things are pretty chill for over hundred years, between Judah and the nations around them, until around the year 600 BC… when some things start to happen
NOW - at the time Egypt, was the great power in the south, and they had been a dynasty for over 1500 years.
AND IN – the North you have the Babylonian Empire and it is very powerful and very large.
OKAY SO – you have Egypt in the South and Babylon in the North and guess who is sandwiched in between, Judah (the people of God).
NOW JUDAH BACK THEN - decides to practice what we would call today the balance of power diplomacy.
IN OTHER WORDS – they were always trying to play off their powerful neighbors against each other.
WHILE TRYING - to navigate the very complicated geo-political climate in the Middle East at the time (Yeah, some things never change).
AND SO IN 600 BC - the King of Judah allies itself with the nation of Babylon. The strongest power at the time.
WHICH MEANS – they pay (tribute or taxes) to Babylon, nominally it was for protection, and in actuality it was for protection from the Babylonians.
HOWEVER – in 600 BC a very ambitious Pharaoh, Pharaoh Neco takes an army and heads north and reestablishes itself as the dominant power in the Middle East.
AND SO – the king of Judah begins to pay tribute to Egypt instead of to Babylon.
NOW – it does not take very long before the Babylonian billing department notices this and sends out a couple of late notices to Judah.
AND JUDAH – basically says, “Really, your kidding, I don’t know anything about those bills, they must have gone into our spam folder”
BUT UNDERSTAND - you can only do that for so long, right?
SO EVENTUALLY– the Babylonian King decides that he is going to gather up his army and make a little house call.
AND SO – in 597 BC he shows up at Jerusalem and he lays siege on the city. AND – tuns into a yearlong siege.
UNTIL FINALLY – Judah realizes that they are not going to be able to withstand this any longer, so they give up.
AND THEY SAY – “hey it just occurred to us that our check must have got lost in the mail, but we have decided that
‘we do’ want to pay tribute to Babylon.
IN FACT – we will wire the money to you today.
AND – the Babylonian king is like, now that’s great decision, BUT JUST TO - be sure that this kind of nonsense does not happen again, I am going to take 11,000 of the best and brightest of Jerusalem (the doctors, lawyers, legislators, judges, artists, company CEO’s…etc) back to Babylon with me.
SO – 11,000 of God’s people are deported, and they are now living in exile in Babylon. AND BABYLON - also removes the king and installs kind of a puppet King in his place, one that they can control, and his name in Zedekiah.
AND SO ZEDEKIAH – for the next 10-11 years, he pretty much walks the straight and narrow…
I MEAN LIKE - all his checks get to Babylon on time.
AND THOSE – 11,000 Israelites simply resign themselves to living their life as exiles in Babylon.
AND ONE OF THOSE - exiled is a priest named Ezekiel (God strengthens) who was probably around 25 years old at the time. AND IF – you know the story of Daniel, he is also in Babylon at the time. NOW DANIEL – did not come in this particular wave of exiles, but he was there at the time.
AND AFTER - about 5 years in Babylon, when Ezekiel was 30 years (the age when a priest would be able to perform his duties at the Temple, something he had looked forward to for the first 25 years of his life) BEGAN - his prophetic ministry.
AND AT FIRST – he was kind of a prophet of doom and gloom, who continuously was throwing water onto (the fires of hope) that those in exile in Babylon had that Jerusalem and the Temple of God would never be destroyed.
AND SO – the leading citizens are there in Babylon
AND THINGS - are going ‘okay’ in Jerusalem, that is until Zedekiah makes a fatal political miscalculation.
YOU SEE – at this time some of the other nations around Judah along with Egypt decide that if they stick together THEY - can break the back of the Babylonian Empire.
AND JUDAH – not only stops paying tribute,
BUT they actively rebel against Babylon.
NOW THIS ACTION – (as you would expect) throws King Nebuchadnezzar into a rage…
AND SO - he gathers a massive army and heads south.
NOW ZEDEKIAH IS – frantically sending text and voicemails to the Pharaoh of Egypt, but his phone must have been on silent, because he never picks up.
SO EGYPT – never send an army north to help out.
AND SO – once again, Babylon lays siege on Jerusalem,
AND THIS TIME - there would be no mercy, whatsoever.
AND AFTER – a long and brutal 18 months the people are starving, there is no longer any food.
AND THE BABYLONIANS - break through the walls and they take their vengeance.
THEY…
• Burn down every building,
• Tear down the walls surrounding the city,
• They pillage, tear down and destroy the Temple of God
• They hunt down King Zedekiah (who had fled with army in the night, leaving the people to defend themselves)
• They capture him, execute his sons before his eyes, and then they cut out his eyes and take him away in chains to Babylon.
• Then they take all of the people of Judah into captivity, except for a few poor people to work the fields and tend vineyards.
AND MGCC – when the news of this (total and complete destruction), reaches the ears of the exiles who are living in Babylon…
• They are devastated.
• They have no country,
• They have no Temple. They have no leadership, and
• Their future as a people appears to be gone forever.
LISTEN – as far as they could see they would simply be absorbed into the culture of this pagan nation and be a people no more.
UNDERSTAND – that is where God’s people are when the prophet Ezekiel has his powerful vision of a valley full of dry bones… no hope, no future
IN FACT – the have been saying of themselves as recorded in Ezekiel 37…
‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone, we are cut off…’ - Ezekiel 37:11
QUESTION
HAVE - you ever been there?
ARE - you there?
In a valley full of dry bones, In a place…
• Where your hope is dried up and gone
• Where you feel cut off
• Where you look at the situation and the circumstances that surround you, and all you see is dried up and cut off
• Where you have no power
• Where you can’t do anything
• Where you feel like your only choice is to give up
“It will never get any better”
“Things will never be able to turn around”
UNDERSTAND - ‘This’ is the background and context for Ezekiel chapter 37, NOW…
II. The Vision
Ezekiel 37:1 AND HEY – keep in mind the context of this vision. God’s people have been in exile in Babylon for years, and with the news of the complete and total destruction of the city and The Temple… They (and possibly Ezekiel as well, had lost all hope for their future)
The hand of the Lord was on 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.
NOW – during that time when an army was defeated in battle The victorious soldiers would often strip the valuables from the slain and then leave their enemies' bodies unburied
(as if no cared that they were dead).
AND LISTEN - in remote places where there had been serious battles, skeletons sometimes remained for years afterward, where…
• wild animals completely devoured and scattered the bones,
• and the elements took their tool
He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley,
NOW - can you imagine walking around ankle-deep in the bones of the dead?
YEAH - it might have been a dog's dream come true; but it likely made the prophet extremely uncomfortable.
To touch a dead body would render anybody, but especially a priest, unclean.
BUT HOWEVER - objectionable it must have been for Ezekiel to be placed, even in vision, in this gruesome field of death!
God wants him to feel the full impact of the situation.
I MEAN FROM - one end of the valley to the other all He sees is dry bones. AND FROM - one end to the other of their lives all God’s people in exile saw was no hope for their future.
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.
AND UNDERSTAND – being ‘very’ dry is making a powerful statement about the condition of these bones.
THAT – it is not just hopeless now, but that it is hopeless in the future.
UNDERSTAND – God wants His people to know, THAT…
• When you have discounted all hope
• When you have looked throughout the valley of your life and all you see is very dry bones
• When you have no power
• When you can’t do anything
• This is when our God is most powerful!
I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
MGCC - these bones are not just dead, they dead–dead, with zero hope at all for life.
YOU SEE – if these bones are dry, then the bone marrow which is critical to life is dry.
UNDERSTAND – it is in the bone marrow, that we find the stem cells that are essential for the production of blood.
• Red cells carry oxygen through the body
• White cells fight disease
• Platelets cause the blood to clot
SO AGAIN - these bones are not just dead, they dead–dead, with zero hope at all for life.
He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
- Ezekiel 37:1-3
NOW REMEMBER – God is omniscience and therefore He is not asking this question to gain information…
YOU SEE - God already knew the answer.
INSTEAD – I think He asked this question for Ezekiel’s benefit to see if…
• Ezekiel was on the same wavelength,
• He was tuned into God’s channel,
• He had the kind of faith that God needed in order to speak hope into a people who had lost all hope.
‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’
We are alive, but we are dead
We are still around with the sensibilities to know where we are but there is no future.
UNDERSTAND – God’s people thought that because they had turned their backs, on God that He had the right to turn His backs on them, and He did.
BUT THE FACT IS - you cannot understand the loving kindness and mercy of God almighty.
I MEAN - if I were to determine this morning about whether or not I a worthy of God’s mercy, I would have to determine that I am not.
BUT THANKFULLY - I do not make that determination and neither does anyone else. Amen.
MGCC - Our God is more compassionate, more merciful and more long suffering, than anyone of us could ever imagine… AND HE IS - more powerful, than we have yet to believe.
YOU SEE - He can take the most hopeless of situations and turn it around, HE CAN…
• Turn night it to day - Graves into gardens
• Bones into an army - Death into life
UNDERSTAND – what may appear as an impossible situation to you and me, is a field of possibilities for our God.
• God said to the aged Sarah who doubted that God could enable her to give birth to a son (at 90), “is anything too hard for the Lord.
• When (MS aged) Mary asked, "How can this be?" the angel Gabriel told her, "Nothing is impossible with God."
• And when the disciples asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus said, "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible."
NOW – I find it interesting (and soo God) that He puts the prophet Ezekiel in a vision of the very thing that the people had been saying with their own lips…
‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone…’
I MEAN – it is as if God is saying…
• YOU WANT– to talk about bones, we can do that
• YOU WANT – to talk about no hope, we can do that too
• BUT GET READY – to watch what I can do with dry bones.
• Watch what I can do with hopeless situations.
He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” - Ezekiel 37:1-3
NOW IF - Ezekiel had responded to God's question based on the evidence of his senses, he would have answered "no." Dead, dry bones cannot come back to life.
I MEAN - if you were the first to the scene of an accident and you saw somebody lying motionless on the ground, you might think, "Perhaps there's hope." YOU MIGHT - even do a little CPR and try to revive the person.
BUT IF YOU - saw a skeleton lying in the road, you wouldn't even consider giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
You'd think, "It's just dead bones. There's no hope."
He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
NOW – I love that answer.
He did not say no
He did not say yes
He gave the ‘Sunday School’ answer
“Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!
QUESTION - if you were to walk down the street one day and you saw someone preaching to a skeleton, what would you think?
You'd telephone the nearest mental hospital, wouldn't you? You'd assume that man was a menace to society.
YEAH - preaching to dry bones would seem like a waste of time.
LIKE - a skeleton just isn't listening!
BUT LISTEN – I think that we often forget the incredible power of God's Word.
IF - God can speak matter into existence with just a word AND IF - He can make a man out of clay or a woman out of a rib, and calm a violent storm with just a word…
THEN - it stands to reason that He can also cause the dry bones to hear the word of the Lord and live!
Me – “Dry bones” (hopeless situation)
Body – “hear the word of the Lord”
This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones:
I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.
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.
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.
NOW IMAGINE - the prophet Ezekiel standing in this valley, ankle-deep in thousands of sun-bleached skeletons.
THEN - as he begins to preach, there was a rattling. Suddenly as if drawn by some powerful unseen magnet, bones began to whiz and fly through the air, being pulled back to their original places as God began the amazing process of reassembly.
After the bones came together in their appropriate positions and Ezekiel continued preaching one he writes,
I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
At this point all the body parts were in their proper place.
The bones, muscle, and skin were in position, but still there was no life.
The brain was in the head, but it wasn't thinking.
The lungs were there, but the body wasn't breathing.
The heart was in place, but it was not beating.
Like Adam before the Lord inflated him with the breath of life, each body was still a perfect lifeless corpse.
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, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
WOW – what was dead is now a vast army.
(Ezekiel – we did get that message recorded, right?_
WHAT – a powerful vison…
AND LISTEN – the awesome thing about this vision is that we do not need to guess at its meaning…
BECAUSE – God is going to tell us.
Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them:
Ezekiel I want you to do for my people what I had you do in this vision…
‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: 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.
UNDESTSAND – God’s people were in a state of hopelessness in Babylon.
They felt like dead, dry bones.
The said their hope was lost.
They considered themselves cut off from their homeland and forever forsaken by God.
BUT - God said “I will bring you up out of your captivity that feels like a grave….
AND - I will bring back you to your homeland.”
Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 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.’” – Ezekiel 37:13,14
AGAIN - God said “I will bring you up out of your captivity that feels like a grave….
AND - I will bring back you to your homeland.”
AND THAT – is exactly what God did as He promised…
UNDERSTAND – when there 70 years of captivity were up
The Persian King of whom the prophet Isaiah said,
I will raise up Cyrus to fulfill my righteous purpose, and I will guide his actions. He will restore my city and free my captive people— without seeking a reward! I, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!” Isaiah 45:13
Issued a decree
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the LORD fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah. He stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says:
“The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Any of you who are his people may go to Jerusalem in Judah to rebuild this Temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, who lives in Jerusalem.
And may your God be with you! Wherever this Jewish remnant is found, let their neighbors contribute toward their expenses by giving them silver and gold, supplies for the journey, and livestock, as well as a voluntary offering for the Temple of God in Jerusalem.” – Ezra 1:1-4
OKAY – that’s the Background and the Vision,
Now for…
III. The So What? (‘Such things…’)
QUESTION – so what does God intend for this vision in Ezekiel 37, to teach us and how does it give us hope and encouragement, as we wait patiently for God’s promises?
NOW – I want to share four ‘so what’ things with you.
AND – we will not go into great depth, because they are all things that you know.
A) God keeps His promises
Therefore you can trust what he says…
NOW - this week in our FCFH we read Psalm 89, and it really spoke powerfully to this truth.
NOW – in this Psalm we read about the promise that God made to King David, God says…
I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure. But if his descendants forsake my instructions and fail to obey my regulations, if they do not obey my decrees and fail to keep my commands, then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their disobedience with beating.
But I will never stop loving him nor fail to keep my promise to him. No, I will not break my covenant; I will not take back a single word I said. I have sworn an oath to David, and in my holiness I cannot lie: His dynasty will go on forever; his kingdom will endure as the sun. It will be as eternal as the moon… - Psalm 89:30-37
MGCC – God keeps His promises!
HE - promised that if His people turned their back on Him , worshipped false gods, and continued to disobey Him that He would punish them… God kept His promise.
AND HE ALSO - promise that David’s dynasty would endure forever, and be eternal… God kept His promise
AND LISTEN - That forever dynasty has been fulfilled in in the person and purposes of Christ.
QUESTION – are you thankful…
THAT - you serve a God who keeps His promises?
THAT – you can trust what He says?
B) God can do anything
Therefore do not put any limits on what His power can do.
UNDERSTAND
Nothing is impossible with God.
No situation is beyond repair.
No life is beyond the possibility of redemption, salvation, transformation.
QUESTION – do you have a problem that you feel is way too big for you?
God is more powerful than your problem.
HAVE YOU - ever looked at another person or a situation in the world around you…
AND – all you saw were dry bones?
LISTEN – I believe that our God can step into any valley of dry bones, into any place of hopelessness…
AND BRING – His presence and power into it.
C) God can bring the dead back to life
This is what God the LORD says— the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it… - Isaiah 42:5
Creation
• Earth
• Adam
Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. – John 5:24
Yes, these bones can live
IF WE…
1) DO as God commands
So I prophesied as I was commanded…
2) SPEAK His Word
UNDERSTAND - when God's people preach the truth, it's going to cause a rattling.
Things are going to happen. Sometimes it brings revival.
At other times it arouses opposition or persecution. Sometimes both!
But I guarantee that when God’s truth is faithfully proclaimed, there's going to be a lot of rattling.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desir and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. – Isaiah 55:10,11
3) LEAN into His Spirit
So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty. “What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of ‘God bless it! God bless it!’” - Zechariah 4:6,7
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead… - Ephesians 1:17-20
