Ezekiel Sitting in the Valley of Dry BonesBible World
37:4Ezekiel 37:4
Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
The verse is God's command to the prophet to speak His word to the dry bones. That command teaches that God can restore what appears beyond hope, that no work of restoration is too hard for Him, so that those who trust Him need not say their hope is lost.
The bidding to live will be fulfilled when God in His own time calls forth the dead and gives the breath of life again. The same form will come forth free from disease and every defect and bearing the same individuality of features, so that friend will recognize friend. Personal identity is preserved though not the same particles of matter or material substance as went into the grave, for no law of nature requires God to give back the same identical particles. The spirit, the character of man, is returned to God to be preserved, and in the resurrection every man will have his own character. God gives the righteous dead a body that pleases Him, composed of much finer material, as a new creation and a new birth.
Symbolically, the dry bones are God's church, His backslidden people, the house of Israel, and His churches and institutions, pictured as a valley of spiritually dead bones. They are asleep and at ease while the end nears, unable to be used until God breathes life into them. Their condition is professing to believe the truth yet being in darkness without an experimental knowledge of Christ as the world's Redeemer and without the vitalizing, sanctifying power of truth. Their religion is mere form and ceremony, legal and icy-hearted, with simplicity lost in a round of ceremonies and made lifeless by prejudice and unbelief.
Life comes by hearing light and knowledge and by believing and obeying the word, when God breathes His Holy Spirit and life upon hearts. Where the word is sought and followed there is steady advancement toward watching and sobriety instead of sleeping as others do, but without the deep, life-giving moving of the Spirit on the heart, truth becomes a dead letter. To prophesy to the bones is to present sin and atonement in the light of the Bible, holding up Christ and His righteousness and the better things provided in Him as the life-giving message that reveals Christ and brings life.
Opening the closed door to that message and arousing the sleeping ones requires earnest work and prayer and a straight testimony. It requires humbling before God, drawing near to Him, turning from self-chosen ways and counsel, seeking Him while He may be found, and using all powers for God until purposes become Christlike in purity and meekness and grace. Those made alive and energized stop smothering the warning and, with self-denial and self-sacrifice and power from God, carry the last message of mercy before Christ's second coming to new fields and to those who have not heard it. They pass the received light to others and work together with God in gathering in and bringing home the sheep of His fold.
The verse is God's command to the prophet to speak His word to the dry bones. That command teaches that God can restore what appears beyond hope, that no work of restoration is too hard for Him, so that those who trust Him need not say their hope is lost.
The bidding to live will be fulfilled when God in His own time calls forth the dead and gives the breath of life again. The same form will come forth free from disease and every defect and bearing the same individuality of features, so that friend will recognize friend. Personal identity is preserved though not the same particles of matter or material substance as went into the grave, for no law of nature requires God to give back the same identical particles. The spirit, the character of man, is returned to God to be preserved, and in the resurrection every man will have his own character. God gives the righteous dead a body that pleases Him, composed of much finer material, as a new creation and a new birth.
Symbolically, the dry bones are God's church, His backslidden people, the house of Israel, and His churches and institutions, pictured as a valley of spiritually dead bones. They are asleep and at ease while the end nears, unable to be used until God breathes life into them. Their condition is professing to believe the truth yet being in darkness without an experimental knowledge of Christ as the world's Redeemer and without the vitalizing, sanctifying power of truth. Their religion is mere form and ceremony, legal and icy-hearted, with simplicity lost in a round of ceremonies and made lifeless by prejudice and unbelief.
Life comes by hearing light and knowledge and by believing and obeying the word, when God breathes His Holy Spirit and life upon hearts. Where the word is sought and followed there is steady advancement toward watching and sobriety instead of sleeping as others do, but without the deep, life-giving moving of the Spirit on the heart, truth becomes a dead letter. To prophesy to the bones is to present sin and atonement in the light of the Bible, holding up Christ and His righteousness and the better things provided in Him as the life-giving message that reveals Christ and brings life.
Opening the closed door to that message and arousing the sleeping ones requires earnest work and prayer and a straight testimony. It requires humbling before God, drawing near to Him, turning from self-chosen ways and counsel, seeking Him while He may be found, and using all powers for God until purposes become Christlike in purity and meekness and grace. Those made alive and energized stop smothering the warning and, with self-denial and self-sacrifice and power from God, carry the last message of mercy before Christ's second coming to new fields and to those who have not heard it. They pass the received light to others and work together with God in gathering in and bringing home the sheep of His fold.