"Diggin Up Bones"

By John Stallings

Many times I’ve seen dead animals in the road and unfortunately have hit some of them myself when driving.

It’s not a pleasant experience to see the carcasses of those unfortunate creatures that have fallen prey to the dangers of modern life. If you do much hi-way driving you’ll see this “road kill” in every state in the country.

The valley of dry bones in Ezekiel chapter 37 was perhaps Ezekiel’s most famous vision. To say he "saw dead carcasses" was an understatement. What he saw in this dismal valley of dry bones was, to say the least, a gruesome vision that shook him to his core; a scary sight of utter annihilation and holocaust.

Ezekiel was one of the most visionary prophets, subject to long trances where he was uncommunicative, after which he’d describe amazing images. He was a street preacher who delivered basically a “turn or burn” message. If you heeded his message, you could learn, turn and be saved. If you didn’t heed, you’d burn. He was the son of a Zadokite priest.

Ezekiel went into captivity at the age of eight & was called by God to be a prophet at age thirty. To say that Ezekiel was a little weird is like saying the ocean is a little wet. When God called the prophet Amos to preach he just said “Yes.” It took Ezekiel over three chapters to tell about his calling. It’s as if the whole universe had to get involved. Did he ever have a flair for the dramatic? The vision he had of the valley full of dry bones is one of the most dramatic ever penned. In his vision this strange preacher goes to a grave-yard to preach a sermon.

All of the prophets did odd things but Ezekiel takes the cake. He was known to lie on his side for 390 days at the time eating nothing but one, 8 ounce meal a day that was cooked over manure. He shaved his head as well as his beard. You might call Ezekiel eccentric, for when his wife died an untimely death he was strangely catatonic, almost mute & showed no sorrow. He was a young contemporary of Jeremiah, but while Jeremiah was preaching in Jerusalem, Ezekiel was preaching in Babylon. Ezekiel uses incredible detail in his writing & his message was that God wasn’t through judging Israel. He uses the phrase “Know that I am God” sixty-five times in the book.

LETS BACK UP A BIT

What made this dry bones vision important was that Israel had been attacked, defeated and devastated. The War Wagons of their enemy had pretty much plowed their nation under, and most of its population had been marched off like common criminals to a strange land. What was worse and made the defeat so complete was the loss of the temple, the official dwelling place of God and symbol of National identity. The temple’s precious metals had been looted and razed like a shack, and it became a heap of ruins. It was a fate worse than death and for all practical purposes, a viable Israel was now extinct.

VALLEY OF DEATH

The gutsy young Ezekiel preached in the streets for 22 years, calling the people of Israel from judgment to repentance. In Ezekiel 37, God puts his hand on Ezekiel and leads him down into the middle of this valley of bleached dry bones. For God to whisk men away like this isn’t all that unusual, for in Acts 8:39 --the spirit of the Lord caught Phillip away and he was found later at Azotus preaching.

But what did this valley full of dead bones mean? Why was God showing Ezekiel this scene of mass carnage & catastrophe; what was the point of it? Common sense told him the bones were proof that life once existed; that these bones were once living organisms filled with the life of God. The mystifying thing was that all there is to see are bones that have been dead so long they’re bleached white, lying all over this large valley, dislocated and disjointed. The buzzards had done their work well.

Many questions flood our minds here. Did this valley have a name? How long had the bones been there? Why had their families not given them a decent burial? Who had these people been and what lesson did they have to teach? These & a few more questions probably came to Ezekiel’s mind as he walked around the valley. Also, being human, another thing crossed his mind; this thing looks hopeless.

Here is a valley full of the bones of some past large army that were obviously badly defeated in battle. What was God going to show his man here? One of the symbolic lessons of the bones had to be the potential and possibility that had been squandered.

YOU’VE VISITED THIS VALLEY

We’ve all been to this valley where you walk knee-deep in the brokenness of the world.

Cancer struck close by in our lives and all at once we saw dry bones.

Our project fell apart and all at once we saw dry bones.

Our dreams were destroyed and there, facing us were dry bones.

A career is ended and we see dry bones.

The family breadwinner is laid off and there are dry bones.

Relationships are lost and we see dry bones.

A son or daughter is killed in war and suddenly you see dry bones.

All at once the devil takes the word  "hopeless "- and tacks it above everything in our lives. We don’t know the reason; all we know is that we’re walking down the valley of dry bones. The most casual glimpse of our world today, especially if you see it through the prism of television news reveals dry bones. Perhaps you hadn’t thought about it but as you read this, maybe you’re in some kind of dry bones situation.

THIS VALLEY REPRESENTS VERY BIG AND VERY COMPLICATED PROBLEMS.

Ezekiel says, “and behold they were very many and they were very dry.”

That lets us know we’re not dealing with some small thing here; it had been a gigantic army in bygone days and obviously had been terribly defeated and decimated.

Maybe the dry bones in your life aren’t a small thing either, but rather a very big problem that’s going to need a very big intervention from God. Perhaps some awful thing has made inroads into your family and Satan tells you it’s hopeless.

THIS SITUATION SEEMED CRAZY

Not only were the problems very bad, Ezekiel says the bones were scattered. They weren’t skeletons intact; the picture is of bones that were in a configuration which hardly made sense. Have you ever felt that not only was your situation dead and very dry, it was so multi-leveled and complicated that you were almost embarrassed how warped, dysfunctional and unexplainable it was? It’s like a plate of spaghetti, lying there all tangled up on the plate, and you feel almost embarrassed because things have gotten so crazy. Have you ever felt that your circumstances were even too much for God? They never are, and that’s also one of things this story teaches us.

WHY DID EZEKIEL HAVE TO GO OUT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THIS VALLEY?

Why couldn’t God have passed him over it, given him a bird’s- eye view and whisked him away? Why did he sit him down in the midst of this horrific place? God operates on the principle that some problems can’t be dealt with from a distance. None of us relish going among the dead. We’d prefer to be with the living, at least among people that have a little life in them, but often God puts us right there so we can see how really messed-up things are. God never intended for His church to be a cloistered group of over-pious people separated from the suffering of this world.

It’s easier to send provisions to foreign countries than it is to send our sons and daughters. Many people have no problem writing a large check for missions but they resent scooting down the pew in church to let the downtrodden and needy sit next to them.

THE BIG QUESTION….

After Ezekiel gets into this valley & has a good look around & gets a close- up of all this carnage, God pops a question to him;

…can these bones live?

But this question isn’t asked to get information. As so often when God asks a question, he’s after something deeper. In the Garden of Eden God asked Adam and Eve “Where are you.”? Remember the question God directed toward Cain after he killed Abel; “What have you done with your brother?” It’s like the question Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” This is the kind of rhetorical question we’re dealing with.

As we read this story, we find that we’re being asked a question too.

* Can these bones live?


* Is there any reason for hope here?


* Can anything good come from something this terrible ?


Sometimes we lie awake at night and ask ourselves questions about things in our lives, and the lives of our friends and maybe even the world. “Is there any reason for hope, honest to goodness hope, that isn’t rooted in shallow sentimental optimism or total denial? Can these bones live? It’s a big question, and of course Ezekiel is baffled, and answers in a way that puts the problem back in God’s lap. Only God knows the answer so Ezekiel answers, O Lord God, thou knowest.

GOD’S REMEDY; EZEKIEL, --PROPHESY TO THESE BONES.

God tells Ezekiel to start prophesying and preaching to these dead dry bones. To the natural mind, this was very foolish; to walk among these long dead, chalky white bones, talking, encouraging, coaching and cajoling them to rise up and live. The only thing powerful enough to bring this army back to life was the Word of the Lord.

FOR EZEKIEL IT WAS NOW REALITY TIME.

He must speak to dead people. It wasn’t time for manipulation. A big resume’ couldn’t put flesh back on these bones. No artificial flesh or prayer clothes laid over these bones was going to work. No magic or incantations would work either. These weren’t sick people they were stone cold dead; not people, but chalky bones. No slick solutions were going to do one wit of good in this valley, only words of prophecy accompanied by the mighty power of God.

I heard about a man who went day after day to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Some tourist’s had been observing him until one day one of them asked the old man how long he’d been coming to the wall to pray. He answered that he’d been coming there for 60 years. Then they asked him if he felt he’d ever gotten a prayer answered and the old man thought a moment and replied, “not that I can recall.” One of the tourists asked him how he felt about that & the old man retorted, “Well. It’s like talking to a brick wall.” The old gentleman then just shook his head and sadly walked away.

It is obvious that if Ezekiel is going to pray over these dry bones in his own strength he’s going to be talking to a wall. But Ezekiel began to prophesy and say exactly what God had instructed; “O ye dry bones hear the word of the Lord.” The driest bones are those who haven’t heard the Word of God. Ezekiel said these same words twice, and then he heard a noise, and a shaking and a movement began, and the bones started to come together. The word of God had again proven its creative power, just as it had on creation day when God said, “Let there be light.”

Now look what Ezekiel had. God had put flesh and sinew on the skeletons and wrapped skin around them but now he had a great big crowd of dead people lying deathly still. There was absolutely no life in them. There was a form, but no force. What Ezekiel now had on his hands was a perfect picture of what Paul told Timothy end-time religion would look like. He said it would….

 “Have a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3:5.

 In other words, they would have the form but no force.

So we must speak to the dry bones of our lives and Prophesy to them but we can’t do it in our strength or in our name, for there is no power without God’s power.

Then another part of this story unfolds. God told Ezekiel to prophecy to the wind. God tells Ezekiel in verse 9, “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.” The bodies, even though they are now covered with flesh, are only cadavers and it will take the wind to breathe life into them.

IN SCRIPTURE, THE WIND IS A TYPE OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD.


The Hebrew word RUACH is used for breath, wind and spirit. When the wind came into that dry dead valley, the Holy Spirit came, as on the day of Pentecost, when one of the evidences that the Holy Spirit had arrived was the sound of a rushing mighty wind. It was the breath of God that was required to bring life, just as in John 20:22 when Jesus breathed on His disciples and they received the Holy Ghost.

After the Holy Ghost was poured out on the day of Pentecost, the disciples who had been cowering with fear were filled with power from on high to be witnesses for Christ, and to be willing to ultimately give their lives for Him.

Preachers can’t change hearts and lives. The powerful wind of the Holy Spirit must come and complete the job. Without the anointing of the spirit, sermons are dry and lifeless. All preaching is dependent upon God’s Holy Spirit to speak to the hearts of individuals and prepare them to except Christ as Savior.

Ephesians 2:1-4 depicts lost, sinful man as exactly like the dry bones in Ezekiel’s valley. We were …. Dead in trespasses and sins, but God has quickened us (or breathed life into us) together with Christ.


AN EXCEEDING GREAT ARMY ROSE UP-- NOT A MOB.

Ezekiel practiced simple obedience and prophesied and when he did, God raised up these dead bones to become an exceeding great army. God’s power transcends the power of death and the grave. They didn’t manifest as an unruly mob but as an organized, disciplined army, ready to march to battle. An army carries the thought of obedience under a General. Then God told Ezekiel what all of this represented. He told him in the eleventh verse…Son of man these bones are the whole house of Israel.

This had all been an allegory depicting how Israel who was in captivity was going to be brought back and reborn. In verse 14 God tells Ezekiel about Israel,

“And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.”

Remember, this is God dealing with a nation. He deals with nations and He deals with individuals.

THERE IS HOPE IN EVERY SITUATION

Ezekiel couldn’t see the wind but he began to see the dance of trees and grass and fields of wildflowers as they responded to the caressing winds. Then he witnessed the army as it began to spring to life also.

What is God saying to you through this story? For one thing he wants us to see things from another perspective. They look hopeless to us but not to him. What would be a crushing debt to me would be pocket change to Bill Gates.

Have you given up hope? Do you think the best years of your life are behind you? Do you feel that God has forgotten you? Get up from your heap of discarded dreams. Let the Holy Spirit breathe new life into your soul and you will see God’s spirit move into your valley of dry bones and show-out in ways you would have never believed. You’ll find yourself dancing once again, responding to the breeze of God’s Holy Grace. God specializes in dry bones, lifeless souls, impossible situations, dead ends and dashed hopes.

MULTITUDES ARE LANGUISHING; WAITING FOR YOU & ME TO START BELIEVING THAT GOD CAN REVIVE US, & THAT DRY, DEAD BONES CAN LIVE AGAIN.


Blessings,


John