Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord…”
Ezekiel 37:4 ESV
I’ve been writing these past weeks about the foundational need for the Word in our lives and the benefits it brings.
All Life, from the Author of Life, comes to us through Jesus, the word made flesh.
From F.F. Bruces’ Commentary on the Gospel of John, he writes about John 5:35 ~
“For Jesus is himself the gift of which he is the giver. He has come to give himself that men and women may live by him. To partake of the bread of life, they must come to him, they must believe in him. This is total commitment to Christ, this appropriating him by faith, is the secret of eternal life and perpetual soul-refreshment’.
When Ezekiel is carried in the Spirit to this valley of bones, he notes they were ‘very dry’. The Lord asks Ezekiel if these bones can live and Ezekiel's response is much like ours would be, ‘only you know’ God. It is in the midst of what looks impossible that we have God’s prophetic word decreed.
We see, just as we learned in Genesis’ creation, the presence of God, the Spirit hovering, and the word spoken. Again, we will note that Ezekiel is given the decree to declare by the Lord, ‘say to them’…..
5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath2 (2 Or spirit; also verses 6, 9, 10) to enter you, and you shall live. 6 And I will lay sinews upon 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.”
Each declaration is met with the activity, ‘a sound, and a rattling as the bones come together and are covered. Together, yet lifeless, he is then instructed to prophesy to the breath (spirit) to breathe upon the slain that they may live. Breath enters, they live and stand, an exceedingly great army.
The Lord tells Ezekiel that the bones represent the whole house of Israel, who say about themselves ’Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost and we are indeed cut off.’
God’s power and word comes to a hopeless, dried-up, and defeated people.
I’m using Ezekiels' vision to emphasize God’s heart and purpose for His church today. We may feel hopeless, dried up, and defeated over many areas of our lives, yet God comes as the Author and Giver of life into these places.
He decrees a word, he has decreed THE WORD, that brings all we need, and by the very breath of His spirit, He waters, refreshes, and strengthens us for all battles we must engage in… ‘they stood on their feet an exceedingly great army’.
Dry bones, lifeless, defeated people, are created by turning away from Him as their life’s source. These dry bones have ceased to ‘hear the word of the Lord’. Where there is no hearing there ultimately is no believing. Hebrews tells us the evil heart of unbelief causes one to depart from the ‘living’ God’, chapter 3:12. There can be no salvation without a returning. God’s restoration of cleansing with a new heart, and a new spirit, all come into us through our receptivity of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. We bow to the declarations of His word. We hear, we believe and we live.