Get the picture with me. You are praying and everything is great, suddenly you open your eyes, and you are standing in the middle of a valley filled with bones. They had been there a while. These skeletons covered the whole valley floor. God tells you to walk among them and as you do so, He asks you if they can live again. Now you know there is no way, but since you are talking to God you know nothing is impossible with Him. You wisely answer, “Lord, God, You Yourself know.”
You are standing there a little weirded out half wishing he had put you somewhere less creepy. Then he tells you to speak to the bones. This is what God wants you to say to them.
“Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘You dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’This is what the Lord God says to these bones: ‘Behold, I am going to make breath enter you so that you may come to life. And I will attach tendons to you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you so that you may come to life; and you will know that I am the Lord.’”
The man is Ezekiel, and this story is found in Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel does what God asks of him. While Ezekiel prophesied “there was a loud noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone.” While he was watching, “tendons were on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.”
Ezekiel is standing in the middle of this valley where only a moment before had been covered with dry bones. Now it is full of dead men laying all over the valley floor. He had watched as their bones had come back together and tendons and ligaments came to cover the bones and muscles, and flesh covered the tendons and ligaments. They lay there with no breath in them. But God wasn’t done. He tells Ezekiel to prophesy one more time,
“Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘The Lord God says this: “Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, so that they come to life.”’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath entered them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.” (Ezekiel 37: 7-10)
God put breath in these men. They were just dry bones lying in a valley. Now they were living men. God had restored them. They stood there looking around at each other and at Ezekiel wondering what had just happened. Ezekiel was looking at them wondering what in the world this was all about.
God does not do anything without a reason. He tells Ezekiel that these bones are the house of Israel. They believed all hope was lost. They were in exile from their land. The land God had promised them. God tells Ezekiel the people are saying three things. First that their bones are dried up. Represented by the valley of bones. Second, their hope had perished. They felt they had nothing left to hope for. And third, they had been completely cut off. They felt abandoned. Psalm 88:5 gives an example,
Abandoned among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You no longer remember,
And they are cut off from Your hand.
I just wonder, have you ever felt abandoned by God? I think if you breathe you have felt that way at some point in your life. We go through difficult challenges, and we cannot see a way out of them, and we pray to what feels like a heaven made of iron. We feel forgotten and alone and cut off. Sometimes the fault is our own and the choices we have made. Other times it is just a season of life that we all walk through.
Israel brought their exile on themselves. God had given them prophets and warnings for years. He had tried to turn their hearts back to Him, but they were hard-hearted and unwilling. So, they were left with punishment and exile. Now here they were feeling abandoned, forgotten and cut off. Still God loved them. He gave Ezekiel this vision to give to the people to give them hope again.
The entire chapter of Ezekiel 37 is about the restoration of Israel. God reveals his plan in verses 12-14,
“Behold, I am going to open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. And I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’”
What began as a terrifying moment for Ezekiel turned into a word of hope for the people of Israel. It is also a word of hope for us. As Israel came out of their captivity back into their land we are assured of God’s promises. There is a two-fold promise in this chapter. I challenge you to read the chapter sometime over the weekend. He promised them to return to their homeland and it happened – twice. First following the exile and second following the holocaust when Israel was recognized as a nation in 1948. Today as Israel sits on the land God promised we have hope in the assurance that God keeps his promise. No, Israel is not on the entire land. The rest will come. But Israel stands as a nation again. One and united, not two separate nations of Israel and Judah. When they were released from captivity, they were Israel.
I don’t know where you are today or what your struggles are. You might feel abandoned forgotten and cut off. Maybe you feel like those dried bones. But look up. God can breathe fresh breath of life into those rattling bone and call you out of your grave of despair and hopelessness. Today walk in his love and assurance.
Angela
