Can These Bones Live? // Taking God at His Word, Part 2

Sometimes, to be honest, life can feel really dry. You look out across the landscape of your life and all you can see is dry bones. You know there’s more out there, but right now you just can’t see how it’ll ever feel “alive” again.

 

Valley of Dry Bones

Have you ever noticed that some people seem to go on with God in a really powerful and exciting way and other people who say, "well I’m a Christian"; I don’t know, they tend to be, if I can use the term "puced", as you know, some people just don’t seem to be living out the joy and the power and the victory that a Christian life should represent. I wonder why that is?

Well ... Jesus called us to go and make disciples; He called us to be disciples, not just believers. I think there is a distinction; a difference. A disciple, well, there’s something resolute, there’s something firm in their direction, they have a sense of where God is taking them and they’re radical believers with their lives, in who Jesus is and what Jesus says. So they "hear" the Word of God but they also "do" the Word of God. Someone who’s a believer and yet not a disciple, well, that person can believe; that person can live the story of Christ intermittently, but there is a sense of floating, there’s a sense of they’re not really deeply committed to be followers of Jesus Christ.

There’s a wishy-washiness about just being a believer and not a disciple; being just a believer is like hearing but not doing and as I said, the Lord calls us to be His disciples. The Lord calls us to go on in strength and power and victory, to live an abundant and exciting and amazing life. I really get excited when I think about what God has called us to. Now I’m not saying that somehow, a disciple has it all together, but they’re on the path, they are committed to the journey with the Lord, wherever He wants to take them. A believer has a sort of an intellectual ascent to the Word of God but they are so often controlled by feelings and circumstances and we know that feelings are fickle; we know that circumstances blow an ill-wind today and a good wind tomorrow. We can’t predict circumstances – we can’t rely entirely on our feelings.

Jesus is about making disciples and not believers. That is why we are going through a series of teaching at the moment that I’ve called, “Taking God at His Word,” because it seems to me that someone who is committed to Christ, committed to walking the walk with Jesus, is someone who takes God at His Word. God has some amazing promises in His Word, the Bible.

Last week we looked at the promise that He will take us just as we are. He will take us with all our weaknesses and frailties and even despite that we can come boldly before His throne of grace. If you have a Bible, let’s go quickly back there because it’s an awesome Scripture; in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 15 and 16, where it says this.

We don’t have a High Priest who’s unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one, who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet was without sin. Let us therefore, approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In other words, because Jesus knows what it is like; because He has walked in our shoes on this earth as a man, because of that He can sympathise with our circumstances and because of that, we should come boldly before the throne of grace.

In other words God’s having a party and it‘s come as you are. We don’t have to get all dressed up; we don’t have to get our lives sorted out to come before God. That’s what happens when we have a relationship with Him, through Jesus Christ.

Today we are going to get on with the next message, which is called, “Can these bones live?” Have you ever looked across at your life and thought, “My life is so dry, it shouldn’t be like this, but as I survey the landscape of my life, it’s like a valley of dry bones? It’s like – can it ever get any better, can I ever have a real sense of vibrant abundant life that I know my relationship with Jesus should bring me?” We all get to that point at sometime. We all get to that stage where we think – my life is just so dry. How’s that going to change? Well, it’s time to take God at His Word.

If you have a Bible, grab it and flip it open to Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel is one of the books of the Old Testament and it comes just after Isaiah, Jeremiah and then the Book of Ezekiel. We are going to chapter 37 and we pick up the story of Israel here, when they have been in exile in Babylon for almost seventy years. This is about the third part of the Book of Ezekiel. The first couple of parts are oracles of judgement against Judah and all the other nations surrounding them but this passage that we’re about to look at, at the beginning of Ezekiel chapter 37, is really early on in the third part and the third part of the book is the book of hope. It’s about the restoration of Israel because as I said, at this point, Israel has been in exile in Babylon for almost seventy years.

God made them a promise; God promised them when He brought them up out of Egypt – remember they spent almost four centuries in slavery in Egypt, after Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Joseph was a Jew who became Prime Minister of Egypt and so all the tribes of Israel thrived in Egypt and became so populous they were enslaved by Pharaoh and there they lived until they cried out and God heard their cry and sent Moses to bring them out of Egypt. But they lived four hundred years in Egypt and then went through the exodus of forty years through the desert and finally past into the Promised Land – the land of milk and honey, but they didn’t stick with what God called them to do – they didn’t obey God and God’s promise was, “I’ll bless you in your land if you obey me but if you don’t, you’ll lose your land.”

And sure enough, Babylon rose up against them and in 586/587BC, the Babylonian empire over-ran Jerusalem; burnt it, destroyed it, killed a lot of people and took the rest of them into slavery in exile in Babylon. And so these people were thinking, “Woe, what about God’s promises? The temple’s been destroyed – that’s where God lives. Now we’re exiled and Jerusalem is raised to the ground, what about God’s promises?”

So there’s a sense of hopelessness and despair after generations. Living again, in exile in another country, in Babylon and this is what God says into that situation. It’s got powerful implications for us today, but let’s just see what happens. Ezekiel was taken by God – have a listen. Chapter 37 beginning verses 1 and 2. Ezekiel says this:

The hand of the Lord came upon me and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley – it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry.

And here’s this valley full of dry, dead bones. Ezekiel was a priest and he knew the importance of burial. I mean these bones weren’t buried and the reason it happen is they had a treaty with God and they disobeyed God and so the armies of Israel were killed and bodies were left to wild animals and it was God’s punishment. You can read about it – we won’t go there now but in Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses 25 and 26, it explicitly predicts that if Israel doesn’t obey God this will happen – their armies will be destroyed. We find out later in this passage, in verse 11, that these are the bones of the House of Israel.

But what about your house? What about your dry bones? What about the relationships and the sin and the wallowing and the drifting that we sometimes experience in our Christian walk? Sometimes we don’t even know why it is. The thing that God does here is He shows Ezekiel the dry bones, He walks him around. He says, “Get a grip on reality.” Well maybe He’s talking to us today – “Get a grip on reality! What are the dry bones in our lives; the things that are coming to ruin our walk and our relationship with God and the wonderful life that God has planned for us; the dead stuff? What are the dry bones? We are going to look at what God does with the dry bones next.

 

Life in His Word

Ok, so we’re living life and we feel that it’s like this valley of dry bones that Ezekiel is talking about here. Well, what does God do with those dry bones? Let’s pick it up in verse 3 of chapter 37. God says to Ezekiel:

"Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “Lord God, you know.” Then He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Oh, dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, “I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live, I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord you God.”

So this is the first recorded tennis match in the Bible. God serves up and says to Ezekiel, “Can these bones live,” and Ezekiel returns the ball across the net and says, “Well, God, it’s really up to you.” I mean, they’re dead, they’re dry, it’s devastated, it’s hopeless, they’re crunching around together,” God and Ezekiel in this death valley and the truth is that it looks impossible to Ezekiel, but he daren’t say that.

Well, let’s come back to our valley of dry bones; the broken relationships, the persistent sin, the dryness, the drudgery and God asks you or God asks me, “Can these bones live?” How do we answer that? I think we return that to God and say, “Lord, Lord you know.” Israel was in a hopeless situation, the world power of the day, Babylon, had them in slavery, they were spiritually and emotionally and morally and nationally bankrupt. They didn’t know whether God would ever do anything to save them. They didn’t even know if God had the power to do that. Well what does God do? He returns it back to Ezekiel. He says:

"Ezekiel, prophesy; speak over these bones."

What does He return; does He return love or grace or touchy feely or mushy? No, He returns with the Word of God, because the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. He says:

Ezekiel, prophesy; speak my Word over these bones. Say to them, “Thus says the Lord God, “I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live and I will lay sinews on you and I will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you will live and you will know that I am the Lord your God.”

God’s Word is powerful and mighty. God spoke creation into existence, He said:

Let there be light.

God calls things into existence that don’t yet exist. You can read that in Romans chapter 4 verse 17. Well, what happens? Let’s have a read – verse 7. So Ezekiel writes:

I prophesied as I was commanded to and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked and there were sinews on them and flesh had come up on them and skin had covered them, but there wasn’t any breath in them yet.

Surprise! Surprise! God said, “Speak my Word over this impossible situation,” so Ezekiel did and through God’s Word, in this vision that Ezekiel had, the bones came together. They had sinew, they had flesh, they had life; no breath yet, but they had life.

God’s Word is spoken and the dry bones become flesh and blood. Our problem, our circumstances, our feelings – when we get hungry in our situation, our valley of dry bones – where do we go? Do we go and feed on the world’s wisdom? Do we go and feed on our friend’s wisdom? Do we pick up the phone and have a whinge to a friend, or do we come to God’s Word and listen to what He has to say about our lives and His plan for our lives and then do we take Him at His Word? Jesus spent forty days and nights in the desert; He was hungry, He was famished, He was thirsty and when the devil tries to tempt Him in His valley of dry bones, this is what He says. He says, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Come on! Where do we go?

We can have a junk food diet of TV shows and movies and women’s magazine and gossip, but how much time do we spend on those things compared to time in the Word. We are what we eat. We go to a Sunday sermon, we listen to it once, we don’t take any notes and we think, “Well why am I not growing?”

Come on; let’s get into God’s Word however we can. There’s power in God’s Word. Jesus said:

If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples.

You see, He links God’s Word to discipleship.

If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

We quote the second half of that normally. We say – the truth will set us free. No, no. Jesus said:

If you are my disciples you’ll be in my Word and my Word will be in you and you will continue in it and you will know the truth and by knowing the truth you will be set free.

A disciple is someone who delights in God’s Word; who radically believes it, who does it. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 17, about the sword of the Spirit being the Word of God. It’s an offensive weapon against Satan. It’s in the Word of God that we stand firm and it is the Word of God that changes things in our lives. That’s why we need to take God at His Word. We’ll see how this story with Ezekiel and Israel finishes up next.

But Wait – There’s More

Well, how does this story end up? We’ve been looking at how God takes Ezekiel out to look at this valley of dry bones, that represents where Israel is spiritually and emotionally and nationally towards the end of their exile, which really was a consequence of their sin; it was a consequence of them breaking their covenant and their promise with God. Well, we saw that Ezekiel spoke God’s Word over these dry bones and just as God had said, when His Word was spoken, all of a sudden flesh came on them, all of a sudden sinew came on them and all of the bones came together. That happened! But look at the end of verse 8 of Ezekiel, chapter 37. It says:

I looked and there was sinews and flesh and skin had covered them but there was no breath in them.

Now let’s read on in verses 9 and 10.

Then God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy Mortal and say to the breath, “Thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe upon the slain, that they may live,” and I prophesied as He commanded and the breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet – a vast multitude.

Wow! You see, God’s Word had been spoken and that gave the power to bring all the bones together, but they yet didn’t have breath. And the Hebrew word for breath is "ruwach", which means a rushing wind and it’s the same word as is used for the Spirit. So when we are talking about the rushing wind, this is a symbol and a picture of the Spirit of God – it’s not just the Word of God – we need the Spirit of God too, which brings life and they stood up and they stood as a vast multitude.

Paul encourages us in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 18, to go on being "filled with the Spirit". There are so many people who say, “Well I’m in God’s Word, you know, I believe in God’s Word,” and yet they go to the Word without the Spirit. They go to God’s Word and read it in their own strength, instead of saying, “God fill me with your Holy Spirit, fill me every day. I want to overflow with your Spirit.”

And when we see God’s Word; the power of God’s Word and the life that the Spirit brings, all of a sudden we see here that these bones in the valley, they come to life, through the "ruwach", through the Spirit of God. Now we might come up with a wimpy response that says, “Well, you know, I’ve tried that but I’m so dry and the Spirit never touches me and ah …”

Have a look with me quickly in Luke chapter 11 verse 9 – this is a really well known passage where Jesus says:

I say to you, ask and it will be given you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, because everyone who asks receives, everyone who searches finds, for everyone who knocks the door is opened. Is there any among you if your child asks for a fish that you’ll give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for bread, you’ll give them a scorpion instead? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more ...

Listen to this:

... how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Jesus said, “knock, persist, ask and you will receive.

And when our hearts are fit to break, to be filled by the Spirit of God and we ask and we plead and we say, “Lord I’m not going to settle until I am so full with your Spirit that I’m overflowing; that streams of living water are running out of me.” When we are so desirous of that, God promises that He will fill us with His Spirit.

A.W. Tozer wrote this, he put it this way. He said:

Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push into His presence and live our whole lives there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.

God’s Word has the power – God’s Spirit brings the life. Why does God work this way? What’s God doing? Why does He allow sin and Satan and why does He allow our lives to go through dry bones? Why do we have to go through this stuff?

Well, He answers that at the end of our passage that we are looking at, Ezekiel chapter 37 beginning at verse 11.

Then God said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel.” So God interprets this vision for Ezekiel. These bones are the whole House of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is lost and we are cut off completely, therefore, prophesy and say to them, “Thus says the Lord your God, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, oh my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel and you will know that I am the Lord God when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves. My people, I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live. I will place you on your own soil and then you will know that I, the Lord your God, have spoken and will act, says the Lord God."

Why does He allow this? So that He can bless us; so that we can receive redemption and life and renewal. Not through our own strength, but when God breathes His Spirit into us; when we believe His Word – when we take God at His Word. That valley of dry bones was a picture of Israel and God said to Ezekiel:

Go and tell them. Speak my Word over them and this is what I will do.

Those dry bones – those dry bones are our circumstances, our sin, our lives lost, our opportunities missed.

Let God show us the reality when we accept the power of His Word, when we accept Him at His Word and we accept His Holy Spirit which is life.

God’s having a party – it’s come as you are, but let’s believe His Word. God calls things that aren’t as though they are. God brings life when He gives us His Word to speak over our life and when He pours His Spirit out over our lives. The question is will you take God at His Word?