Raising Dry Bones

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”.