Raising Dry Bones
Ezek 37:1-10
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
(KJV)
1. In the first three of these ten verses I can see a glimpse of the present day church or shall I say a glimpse of many of the churches today.
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
I see the man of God ( the Pastor, guest preacher, or an evangelist) making his way into the midst of the valley (the church) which was full of bones (spiritual skeletons) and scripture says that they were very dry-probably because they had been exposed to the elements of that their covering had been deteriorated.
What are you saying, brother Brian,: I am saying that I see the man of God going to a dead dry church! And it didn’t just happen over night. Because bones don’t get very dry over night.
2. What can cause the church to be a grave of dry bones?
a. Discouragement- the fact, state, or feeling of being discouraged Discourage- 1 to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence; dishearten
2 to advise or persuade (a person) to refrain
3 to prevent or try to prevent by disapproving or raising objections or obstacles
vi. to become discouraged
Discourage is the opposite of encourage.
1. The Yard Sale of the Devil- A minister, one time provided an illustration for other ministers to use. It is a fictitious illustration called...
The devil one day decided that he was going to have a yard sale and in this yard sale he would have for sale all of the weapons in his arsinul. And he would sale them to some sinister creature that would take his place. So he made the advertisement that his weapons were for sale.
The one day walking up his drive way he saw a dark, hideous sinister creature looking at him and saying to him,”I want to be the next enemy of the world”.
The devil takes him through his yard sale and begins to show him all that he has for sale. As they begin to walk up and down the rows of tables they see on the tables weapons like
-covetousness
-lust
-worry
-envy
and as this dark sinister creature sees all of these things he says, “my goodness what wonderful and powerful tools these would be in my hands to stop the work of God in the earth and to keep the people of God from being what God would have them to be”.
But then the devil turns to this sinister creature with a smile on his face and says to him, “yes these wepons have been used wonderfully and yes of course they have accomplished the work that I have wanted them to do, but I want you to see the wapon I have used the most to bring down nations ant to cause people to give ou on serving God and to stop great things from happening in the world”. As this sinister creature awaits wringing his hands anctiously to see what weapon that the devil is talking about, the devil reaches back in a corner and pulls out a weapon and written at the top of this weapon is the word, “DISCOURAGEMENT”.
The devil presents this weapon before him and says, “by this weapon I have topopled kingdoms, I have stopped people that were excited about the things of God and excited about serving God, I have stopped them dead in their tracts, by this weapon I have stopped people that have made a good start with God, I have made them to give up and lose hope and lose heart, by this weapon I have conquered and by this weapon I have overcome more than by any other weapon in my arsinal. And by this weapon you can well continue on the work that I have begun”.
I want to tell you tonight that the single greatest weapon that the devil has to use against the people of God is discouragement.
If the devil can get you discouraged then you will
Not pray ( whats the use, God don’t hear)
Not read the bible (whats the use God don’t speak to me)
Not pay all of your tithe (whats the use, I can barely make it now)
Not give in the offering (things are really tight now)
Stub up at what the preacher is saying (this guy don’t live in reality)
Look at everyone else and not to Jesus (I cant believe them)
Not come to church (Whats the use)
Lose sight of what God has for you and for this church!
Because of this weapon of discouragement, statistics tell us that every month in America 200 pastors quite the ministry, because of this great weapon of discouragement 3,000 churches every month put a pad lock on the door and close down.
Because of this weapon called discouragement the people of God become down hearted, hopeless, burdened down and weary in well doing.
But I’ve come by to tell you that NO WEAPON....WE ARE MORE...I CAN DO...
b. Sin
What is th 2nd thing that can cause a church to be a grave yard----SIN
Like cancer, if sin is not diagnosed and treated soon enough it will infect and spread through the body resulting in death.
Praise God for the scripture said, And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
God you know that they can and you know what to do to make them live!
Where did these bones come from, who are they. Well perhaps they were a group of people who had at some time gotten discouraged and sat there and died
or
Maybe they were a group of people who had done wrong in the sight of God and he brought forth judgement.
Whoever they were we do know that they came alive stood up on their feet and were and exceeding army!
4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
There was a shaking of the bones because of the vibrant move of the spirit and the bones were responding in recognition that HEY DID YOU FEEL THAT, THAT FELT LIKE LIFE THAT JUST PAST BY!
C. Sinews, flesh and skin
a. sinews-tendons-hold muscle (b. flesh )to bone
Love- loving God
c. skin-PROTECTION-just as skin provides protection for our bodies, if we love one another, we will protect each other, How?
we will pray for each other,
not let someone harm us physically nor by word
if there is one in need we will help
we nee to come together loving God and loving each other, and if we do that then God will breathe.
D. Breath
8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived,
(KJV)
They became alive, why? Breath came in to them! When God created man he breathed into man the breath of life, giving life to that man.
At the day of Pentecost...
Acts 2:2-4
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
(KJV)
Breath here in this vision of Ezekiel is symbolic to the Spirit, and the spirit giveth life!
If you ask me what we need is for God to breath one more time in to us individually and as a church, the breath of life. We need to have that old time religion were serving God and doing right was priority. Where people get saved, sanctified and baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
We need those services where we don’t care to become a little undignified in the presence of God Almighty.
and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
Indeed these here were slain but now they are alive, Satan wants us you and me to be slain.....
They stood up upon their feet, God has given us power to TREAD upon serpents and scorpions (the devil) HE IS UNDER OUR FEET!
