I’m working on a new series and this is a first devotional from that material given at men’s breakfast Oct. 16, 2010.

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Key Thought:    Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones experience; originally a picture of renewal for Israel, speaks powerful encouragement to us too.

 We easily recognize changing winds – winds that bring storms – Nor’easters vs. winds that bring refreshing such as winds that bring on spring warmth, or refreshing summer breezes.  

In the story of the Plagues – it was an east wind that brought the locusts and a strong West wind that drove them away.  

In Morocco where I was stationed for three years, I experienced one Sirocco, a drying wind off the Sahara desert blowing over the Atlas Mountains and down onto the coastal plain.  It is very hot and very dry and very uncomfortable.  Sometimes we feel like our lives have been hit by one of those.  The valley Ezekiel looked upon had been cooked by a wind like that. 

It prompted the Spirit to bring a provoking question to Ezekiel.  “Can these bones live again?”  It was a question that had not occurred to Ezekiel.     His mindset was on the death and destruction he had seen and he could not foresee good in the future.

The dry places of our lives

For Israel

Ezekiel was a prophet of the exile – taken captive with some of the earlier groups of captives from Israel.  While in exile, he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of most of its inhabitants.

Those to whom he spoke remembered the times when they had seen fields of dead bodies and now those who weren’t dead were scattered among the nations.  Israel, their nation was in danger of ceasing to exist as had happening to many other people groups who had been conquered by Assyrian and Babylon. 

Their sins had separated them from God

It was a time of hopelessness.

For Us

Dry times come from many causes—our sins are still separating us from God

But there are other things too.    Sometimes circumstances come against us – we suffer from illnesses, economic problems, unemployment, mental and emotional stresses, and other griefs of life. 

Sometimes we come to dry times from overexertion as the Prophet Elijah did after his Mount Carmel experience.

Whatever the source, we recognize the time when we start asking the kinds of questions that the Spirit poses to Ezekiel.  I suspect God posed it because it was too far from Ezekiel’s mind.  Ezekiel had not entertained that possibility of life from these bones.    It was above and beyond what he had imagined.   Perhaps, to him too, the dry bones of Israel’s failures and present desert experience called exile were bringing on hopelessness.

Our ultimate metaphor is death – “It’s killing us”  “I’d rather die.”  We don’t see good things happening in our future, only bad.

Are you in a desert time in your life right now when you can hardly conceive of positive outcomes?    Do you suffer from feelings of hopelessness?   The metaphor of death fits better than the metaphor of life?      You are the kind of person to whom this passage is written.  

Such times bring us the haunting question that the psalmist asked of God, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Ps 85:6 NIV) 

God’s Purpose of renewal

For Israel

God’s renewing power was going to be shown to Israel by bringing them back to the land from which they had been exiled.   “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord” (Ezek. 37:14) 

But it is clear from the words of the prophets that the revival of Israel as a nation would have more dimensions than just physical return to the land.   For one, the root of  division between North and South that had troubled Israel since the rift between Joseph and his brothers would be gone (Ezek. 37:22)   In addition, at least initially, they will forsake idols (Ezekiel 37:23).  Also, God’s sanctuary, the symbol of his presence will be among them again (Ezekiel 37:26,27).  The first fulfillment of this was the rebuilding of the temple after the return of the exiles (Ezra 6:14).   Certainly the ultimate fulfillment of it is in Rev. 21:3.

God’s ultimate metaphor is resurrection!

A parallel passage is Hos 6:2-4.    “After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us so that we may live in his presence.  3 Let’s learn about the Lord. Let’s get to know the Lord. He will come to us as sure as the morning comes. He will come to us like the autumn rains and the spring rains that water the ground.” (from GOD’S WORD Copyright © 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society. All rights reserved.)

For Us

What does our rising from the dead look like? 

• Breathes on us with His Spirit so that we live – places his presence in us forever.   Jn. 14:17; Eph 2:4
   
• Replaces our dead works with living ones. Rom. 6:13; Eph 2:10
   
• Replaces hopelessness with expectation of God at work. Rom 15:13; Rom 8:28
   
• Settles us in our true spiritual homeland with our own inheritance.  Phil 3:20;  Eph 2:6
   
• Unites us with others in Christ. Jn 1:12; Eph 4:5