CAN THESE BONES LIVE?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 18, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 29.

"CAN THESE BONES LIVE?"

VERY gruesome indeed is the photographic reproduction of this old Spanish Catholic cemetery of Manila, yet it is said to be typical of many others in Spanish lands. It is, too, from a human view-point a hopeless picture. The bare bones, the eyeless sockets, the ghastly, gruesome mass, speak strongly of the extinction of all earthly hope.

IT is not a pleasant picture; yet it is but the uncovering of the ghastly, repulsive fact, of what this old world is to the majority of those who dwell here. Humanity does not naturally like to face the stern facts of sin and death. They cloak the sin in the garb of righteousness, or express it by such terms as "expediency" and "policy." They endeavor to make of death an angel of light, and to cover its repulsiveness with marble fanes, costly monuments, or expensive mausoleums. Science and art combine to cover and hide what they can not destroy.

NEVERTHELESS sin is here, and death, its finished fruit, is here, as sad, stern facts and conditions which can not always be hidden; and it will do the SIGNS readers no harm to look for a little time this week upon a picture of the true facts of this old charnel-house of sin, and see, each for himself, what is, so far as humanity alone is concerned, the end of human hopes.

BUT there is another side to the question. The picture is also suggestive to devout Bible-reading Christians. They recall the vision which the Lord gave the prophet when He brought him to "the valley of dry bones." It is such a view, the reproduction of which is placed before our eyes to-day. And with it comes the question, asked by God of the prophet, asked by God of us, "Son of man, can these bones live?" Eze. 37:3. God asked the question that He might give a hopeful answer to the despairing Israel of old, and also to the mourning and despairing and hopeless of all ages, who are bemoaning their lot, and are saying, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off." Verse 11, R.V.

NOT Israel of old alone uttered the cry. Fathers and mothers by the multitude are saying it as they lay, oftentimes, their last child in the narrow house. Men who have lost all their temporal fortune are saying it. Women who are disappointed in marriage are echoing the sad refrain, and are seeing only the burned-out bones of desolated hopes. Wrecks of humanity on the great sea of life, souls who have made human effort unavailing to overcome evil habits, who have gone down in defeat till all earthly friends stand back in utter hopelessness, are saying in despair, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off."

O, LISTEN a moment to the question of God, "Can these bones live?" "No," you will be inclined to say; but rather answer with the prophet, "O Lord God, Thou knowest." And then listen further to hear His answer. But will He reply? Will He condescend to answer the inhabitant of the gruesome, ghastly valley?—Yea, He has already answered. He has given us a blessed lesson of the power of His Word. "Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said He unto me, 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. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." Verses 4-10.

THIS is not merely the hope of a resurrection from the grave. It is God's pledge to every despairing soul. Our efforts in reform, in righteousness, in transformation of character, in human resolution, in various lines, may be valleys and hills of dry bones to our human vision; God is able to make them live, to put upon them flesh and blood, and to make the inert dead mass, vivified by His Word, "an exceeding great army."

MORE than this, unless we know the power of the resurrection here, we will not know it in the glad day of all Israel's redemption. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The power of death is resurrection power. The power over sin is the power over death, and that, too, must be resurrection power. This was the power Christ had. He died for our sins; but in Him was no sin; and therefore "it was not possible that He should be holden of it [death]." Acts 2:24. That resurrection declared Him "to be the Son of God." Rom. 1:4. And He longs to put upon us His righteousness and within us His resurrection power of a righteous, endless life, that we may be demonstrated to be "sons of God," and of the house of Israel in that day. For in our behalf His Spirit prays through the apostle that we "may know . . . what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward

who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might." Eph. 1: 18-21. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."

"SON of man, can these bones live?" Yea, they can live by the living word of God. "Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live." Eze. 37: 11-14. Above this earth's gloomy sepulchers burns and beacons everlasting hope and eternal life through Jesus Christ and His living Word.