"And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord God, You know."-Ezekiel 37:3
What would you do if you were called into a valley full of dry bones? I don't have a clue how I would react. I'm almost positive that I would either A)Need a new pair of pants, or B)Need to find a trash can quickly. That would be bad enough, but then if God asked me "Hey Jeff...do you think that this valley full of skeletons can live?" I would probably say, "Sure don't!" Thank God it happened to Ezekiel and not me!
So Ezekiel is called into this valley full of dry bones. Sounds like a "Tales from the Crypt" story-line. And then God asks him if the dry bones can live. In that moment I think that God was trying to figure out where Ezekiel was. He could have said, "They are all dead. Therefore, I reason in my mind that they cannot live." This would have made Ezekiel 37 much shorter I'm sure. Instead he responds by saying, "O Lord God, You know." And then God says a word that changes the game. Prophesy. For those of you who don't know what 'prophesy' means, in this context it simply means to speak the word of the Lord.
"4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 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 Ezekiel goes ahead and he talks to this valley full of dry bones. He tells them what God told him to tell them, and stuff starts happening. There was a rattling and the bones started coming together. Bone to bone. Then tendons and ligaments, and then finally skin. So where there was a multitude of pieces of skeletons scattered and strewn about this valley, now lay people. Fully formed...people. That had to be an amazing sight to behold. Seeing a miracle like that would blow my mind! If it was me in this story it might have ended right there. YEAH GOD! Woohoo! There are PEOPLE! Where there used to be bones...there are...PEOPLE! It's a good think Zeke was the one in this story. He noticed something I probably would have overlooked. Yeah...they were people now...but they were just corpses now. If Ezekiel wouldn't have noticed the crucial element that they were lacking he might have just let it be...walked away...and then the corpses would have deteriorated again and turned back into...dry bones.
What did Ezekiel see that I probably wouldn't have? There was no breath. They weren't breathing. And without breath, there can not be life. They looked better than they used to...but they were still dead. They were still useless. They still couldn't serve a purpose. In Genesis, when God created Adam and formed him out of the dust of the earth, He molded, shaped, and formed his entire body. Yet, it wasn't until God breathed His breath into Adam that Adam actually became Adam. So Ezekiel understood that there has to be breath in order for something to be alive.
Then God tells Zeke to prophesy to the breath. "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." So Zeke says what he is supposed to say, and then a great wind comes and fills the lungs of this army of dead people and they come to life. They stand and it says it's an exceedingly great army.
Ezekiel witnessed one of the most amazing things in the history of the world. He just saw an entire cemetery full of dead, dry bones become an army that was fully alive and a part of the family of God. That is incredible to say the least.
Friends, I didn't write this just to recap the story of Ezekiel and his encounter with the Living God in a valley full of skeletons. I want to apply this to our lives. I believe that there is great power inside all of us who claim Christ as our Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit is inside of us, working. The book of Romans tells us that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is working in our mortal bodies. I also know that if we get the understanding and grasp the knowledge of what kind of power we have working in our lives, the enemy has no shot at bringing us into bondage. I'm going to give you a little insight into what satan is going to try and do to you. He will try to keep the understanding of who you are a secret from you. He wants to keep you in bondage and he knows that if you find out who Jesus has made you to be, then he will have no shot at containing you. He will do everything in his power to condemn you, to deceive you, and to take you out of the game.
When Ezekiel stepped into this valley of bones and looked around, it didn't look like a promising situation. Walking into a valley full of death doesn't really seem like a spirit booster to me. Then God started talking. Son of man, can these bones live?
Many of us have areas in our lives that are dead or dying. As believers and followers of Christ, the devil would love for those areas to stay dormant and to stay in a state of death and decay. Maybe there has been a dream or a vision in your life that has died. Maybe someone has spoken words of death over a situation or a circumstance in your life. I am here to stand and believe with you today. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives inside of you. That same Holy Spirit is now living and working in our lives.
I want you to think of that situation, circumstance, relationship, etc. that you feel is dead in your life. Focus in on it. Now I want to ask you...can these dry bones live? If you believe that they can I want you to step out in faith and speak out loud to those dry bones. Prophesy to them and speak life into them. You could say something like this
"Lord, I'm standing on the promise of Your word that says that the same spirit that raised Christ lives inside of me. I believe that it is a resurrection power and a life giving power, and today I speak to this area of my life (speak whatever it is you are needing resurrected) and I say let life arise from the dead bones. Let there be freedom where there is bondage, and let there be peace, rest, and joy, where there is turmoil, bondage, and frustration. I speak these things by the power of the name of Jesus Christ who died and gave Himself for me that I might be free. Amen.
If you said that, continue to speak to it until the life comes. But don't allow the devil to deceive you into thinking that just because it is coming together that it is necessarily complete. There was still a process of the breath of God coming and breathing on those slain that they may live. So continue to speak to the situation and the circumstance and also speak to the breath that it would come and really bring that area back to life!
Friends, I am excited to hear about what happens in your life if you truly grasp this understanding. God doesn't want you to walk through life in a perpetual state of depression, confusion, and bondage. He wants to see you set free, and helping to set others free. His greatest desire is you, and He wants you to be complete spirit, soul, and body!
