Ezekiel 37:2
And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
The valley holds very many bones in the open, very numerous and completely dry, showing how lifeless and helpless they are, and it is the valley where prophesying to the wind restores life to the slain so that they stand up as an exceeding great army. The bones are the house of Israel, meaning God's backslidden people now, the church and those who profess to believe the truth in this day, in a dead, lifeless, spiritually dead condition. In particular the valley of very many and very dry bones pictures the church in Battle Creek as spiritually lifeless.
Their dryness is lack of the deep moving of the Spirit of God upon the heart with its life-giving influence, so truth becomes a dead letter for want of its vitalizing, sanctifying power, and they are without an experimental knowledge of Christ as the world's Redeemer. Outward form, ceremonies, and simplicity without power have displaced that power, leaving profession with only a legal religion, icy hearts locked in prejudice and unbelief that do not see Christ and His righteousness provided for them, in darkness despite clear convincing light. The dry condition shuts the door to greatly needed light and knowledge, smothers the warning truth, and leaves them at ease, asleep like others, off guard and unready while the end steals near noiselessly to suddenly surprise the sleepers.
No work of restoration is too hard for God to do, and none who trust in Him need ever say their hope is lost, for the Lord must breathe upon them and bring His Holy Spirit to bear upon their hearts so they shall live. That life comes only by power from God through being stirred by a life-giving message of sin and atonement, Christ and His righteousness, presented in Bible light, and opening a hearing for it requires work and prayer. When that word is believed and obeyed, life enters to energize them, received by giving the will as clay into the hands of the potter, passive and susceptible to divine impressions, cooperating with God to become a vessel molded unto honor, standing where no earthly or selfish motive is suffered to live, for if place is given to it there can be no renewal in the divine image.
Those made alive no longer sleep but watch and are sober, humbling themselves before God, drawing near to Him, turning from self-chosen ways and counsel to Christlike purposes filled with purity and meekness and grace, receiving Christ and His righteousness and then carrying that light to others to gather in lost sheep. Thus revived, they proclaim with self-denial and self-sacrifice the chain of warning messages before Christ's second coming, the third angel's message and the last message of mercy, where it has never yet been heard and in new fields, so that Christian love works its grand miracle in them. The valley also shows the literal resurrection of the dead, when God in His own time will call forth the dead, giving again the breath of life and bidding the dry bones live, with personal identity preserved though not the same particles of matter or material substance as went into the grave, for the spirit, the character, is returned to God to be preserved and in the resurrection every person will have his own character, coming forth in the same form but free from disease and every defect, bearing the same individuality of features so that friend will recognize friend, as God gives the righteous dead a body that will please Him, composed of much finer material, a new creation and new birth.