Ezekiel 37:14, commentary and pictures

In the valley vision the prophet is told to prophesy to the wind, breath enters the slain, life is restored to them, and they stand up as an exceeding great army. No work of restoration is too hard to be done for those who trust, so hope is never to be counted as lost.

The promise to put the Spirit within so that the dead shall live foretells the literal resurrection in God's own time, when He will call forth the dead, give again the breath of life, and bid the dry bones live. Personal identity is preserved in that rising, for the spirit and character are preserved with God and each receives his own again. Each comes forth in the same form with the same individuality of features, so that friend will recognize friend, yet free from disease and every defect.

Spiritually the dry bones are the house of Israel in a dead, dry, backslidden condition, God's professed people exemplified in the church at Battle Creek. They are icy and lifeless hearts with only a legal religion, having religious form and ceremony in place of vitalizing, sanctifying power and simplicity. They profess the truth yet lack an experimental knowledge of Christ as the world's Redeemer, and remain in darkness. Without the deep moving of the Spirit upon the heart with life-giving influence, truth with them becomes a dead letter, and the Lord cannot use them until He breathes life into them.

That breathing is the Holy Spirit brought to bear upon hearts at ease and sleeping, to awaken them to watch and be sober because the end is near and is stealing upon the unready. It is given in answer to prayer for the Spirit to work, reaching both those who wish to be Christians and those with no evidence of connection with God when they come forward in a solemn season with weeping, the new life being seen in deep, feeling testimonies. It comes also through opening the door to needed light and knowledge and giving it a hearing after earnest work and prayer. When the word of the Lord is believed and obeyed, and when it is sought and followed, He gives this life with steady advancement.

The life is given by a life-giving message of Christ and His righteousness, presenting sin and atonement in Bible light so that icy hearts see the better things provided in Christ. Where form has displaced power, even clear presentation of divine truth and reproduced miracles would only ensure condemnation of the impenitent without repentance. Christian love works the grandest miracle by bringing that experimental life.

Receiving it requires surrendered cooperation, yielding the will as clay into the hands of the potter to become a vessel molded unto honor, passive and susceptible to divine impressions. It requires standing in the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness where no earthly or selfish motive is suffered to live, so as to be renewed in the divine image. Then the same restoring power lifts servants above defeat, opposition, reproach and persecution into freedom and light, as when Luther rose above superstition, Romish heresy and fierce opposition. Those made alive are energized to proclaim the message in fields where it has not been heard, to give the light to others and to work with God in gathering in and bringing home the sheep, restoring vitalizing, sanctifying power.