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Can these bones live?

Ezekiel 37: 1 – 14

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 02 Oct, 2005

FOR OVER ten years, I have been talking on and off about revival. I believe that revival is the essential thing that our church needs, and that all the churches of Marrickville need.

A while ago, I talked about believing God for great things. I talked about believing him for revival, and about believing him for great numbers to be converted. I said that I would give these subjects my greater attention.

Now things are coming together in a fresh way. Now is a time to be even more focused on revival and on conversions. Now is the time to resist all growth and development in our own strength, and to ask ourselves, “Can these dead bones truly rise again?”

I am not disparaging anything that has been done. I give great credit to the faith and the hope and the growing spirit of love among us. But it is like the seemingly dead branches which show just a touch of green. You wonder if they will revive or if they are drying out.

We are still like that. There is a touch of green, and we are hopeful that life will return. But can these bones live again? Can these dried sticks produce abundant fruit?

When I was in second year at theological college, we started our Sunday School. Every week I had a new report for the Chapel services: five children... twenty children... eighty children... one hundred and ten children. It just kept building like that.

Everyone was excited.

But I began to realise that our Sunday School had big numbers, but that it wasn’t achieving so much in terms of ministry. It sounded good, it looked good — but it was absorbing a lot of people who didn’t want to be in it, and it was getting a lot of people upset, but they feared speaking out. In other words, it was damaging our spiritual health for the sake of worldly success.

Once again, there were patches of real life there, and I give credit to those among us who stuck it out, and who kept ministering. Your work did bear fruit.

A few of children eventually came through for Christ; but too many went the other way. Some even rejected Christ because they could see what was wrong in the church.

We stand on the brink of a new era. We need to think again. What are the core issues?

We are not here to fill space. Nor are we here to entice people into our web like some never–satisfied spider. We are here to be filled with the glory and with the life of Jesus. We are here to reflect his love, and model his character.

Ezekiel 37 speaks about transformations. God can transform anything, when his power is brought to bear on men and women. That’s what Ezekiel tells us.

Fred Nile recently argued at a public meeting that Australia is a Christian country. Well, I can see what he wants to achieve, but I believe he is wrong. Australia has always been a pagan country, though informed by a Christian minority.

We are evangelicals because we believe that a pagan country needs to hear the gospel. If we think Australia is a Christian country, then we have no job here.

Ezekiel 37 is about the restoration of the life of God in the midst of a God–forsaken and God–forsaking nation. It is about the hope of dawn when the lights have gone out.

Ezekiel looks out over a valley of dried bones. It is a scene of horrible battle-field carnage. The Israelites understood that kind of thing. They had seen battles where too many corpses had been left, and no one could get to burying them. They had seen the birds coming and picking the bones clean.

In England a while back, we crossed Stamford Bridge, 17km from the city of York. It was where King Harold Godwinsson turned away the last Viking invasion of England, in 1066.

His weary army force of 3 000 men marched from London to York in four days. They averaged about 72 km per day. I have walked about 35 km in a day when I was young and fit, and I was exhausted.

When they got there, they attacked, and slaughtered about 8 500 Vikings. There are still bones and remnants of weapons throughout the ground, nearly 1 000 years later. The bodies lay around, rotting in the sun, for months.

That’s what happened after ancient battles. People just kept away until the bones were dry and the stench had settled.

You’ve watched CSI or some of the other forensic science shows on TV. You know something about what happens after death.

Imagine a valley, a gulch, filled with corpses! Imagine a ravine where routed armies lie, where the maggots and worms have had their day, where the last fox has fled and the last bird has flown, because there is nothing of edible value left, just acre after acre of dried bones, piles of human-sized calcium “stones”.

That’s the image that Ezekiel saw.

God is saying to Ezekiel, “That’s how I see Judah. That’s what they have become spiritually, nationally, and politically. A valley of dead bones.”

And then he asks that clinching question:

“Son of man, can these bones live?”

How would you feel if God posed that question to you? How would you answer?

And God isn't merely asking it as an academic exercise. He asks Ezekiel as a “Son of Man.” He is saying, “From your human perspective, Ezekiel, what do you think? Can these bones return to life?” He is not after theology or speculative philosophy. He is asking Ezekiel on the basis of his experiences of life.

Ezekiel just says, “It beats me, Lord. Only you can answer that.”

It’s a question we all have to face, because God is talking about his people. And we are his people, and his people can die.

I read a lot. I find many anti–Christian articles in newspapers these days. Things people would not say about Scientology or Islam are par for the course for Christianity. You’d think that the only troublemakers in the world are Al Quaeda and the Christians.

But, sadly there is a whiff of truth in some of what is said about Christians, particularly about Evangelical Christians. And that truth comes about because there is heresy afoot among so-called Evangelicals. Unless God revives the church, heresy will dominate us all.

Am I being too hard? The more I see, particularly of fundamentalist evangelicalism in the US, the more troubled I become.

Someone asked me where I stood in relation to fundamentalists, and I said that I probably agree 85% with the original fundamentals published around 1912.

I believe in the virgin birth, in salvation by grace through faith. I believe in Christ’s atoning death and bodily resurrection. I believe in heaven and hell, in the perseverence of the saints, in the personal return of Jesus, in the reality of the Devil. I believe in the Holy Spirit and in coming judgment.

I think that makes me pretty much a fundamentalist. I was shocked to realise it!

But I want to tell you right now that there is no theology examination to get into heaven. Jesus won’t ask you if you are a premillenialist or a post millenialist. He isn’t going to question you on your theories about creation.

His big question is, “Do you really love me? Did you do what I asked you?” There will be theological liberals, there will be Roman Catholics, there will be heretics, there will even be some Baptists in heaven. And the big issue will be whether they loved Jesus enough to obey him. Trust and Obey — there’s no other way!

Do you remember what Jesus said to the church at Ephesus?

REV 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. ⁵ Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

It is love which truly makes us alive — love received from God through Jesus our Lord, love given to Jesus and through him to God the Father.

And lost love leads to lost life.

I see so often how we evangelicals are so willing to follow Jesus until it causes real discomfort. We can handle being laughed at if we are part of a group that sings outside a pub or preaches on the street. We can handle being wowsers, or thinking strange things about science.

But when it comes to choosing either the radical mercy of Jesus or the harsh vengeances of the world, we are too inclined to side with illusion of security the world offers. When it comes to including or excluding, we exclude the misfits and find a place for abusers. When it comes to justice for workers, we side with business and Government, because we are sure that, if we lift up our eyes to them, that is where our help comes from. We choose being at ease in Zion, we choose the things that make us comfortable, and we are content for the word to go to hell.

God became human in Jesus. He engaged with ordinary people. Do you think that tax collectors and prostitutes censored four letter words and sang Psalms when Jesus came to their parties?

Do you think he drove the exploiters out of the temple so that we could applaud today’s exploiters of the poor and the outcast? Too many evangelicals act that way!

I am not criticising us here; I am criticising a direction that today’s Christianity is taking. And our choice is either radical commitment to Jesus or sliding with the majority into the valley of death.

But there is a solution.

God tells Ezekiel,

“Prophesy to these bones and say to them, `Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’“

Before the Army of God can give any service to its master, it must hear the Word of the Lord. It must hear the commend to come back to life, and the promise of restoration.

I was thinking about the great revivals in history. From around 1180AD to around 1380AD, a string of revivals hit Europe. There was Waldo of Lyons, there was Francis of Assisi, there was John Wyclif. Each began by preaching life to a dying church. And each recruited othe preachers to carry on the work. This was particularly so with Wyclif, who was prevented from preaching in his latter years, but his so–called Lollard preachers kept on preaching.

You can move forward to the 1740s and John Wesley, or to Finney in the US early next century. They declared life to dead and dying Christians and salvation to Christ’s enemies.

You can see, though, how shocked Ezekiel is, that his preaching actually works! He says,

(EZEK 37:7) So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Sometimes the full picture doesn’t emerge immediately. Sometimes death is not rolled back all at once. As Ezekiel discovers,

…there was no breath in them.

Do you remember when Philip preached to the Samaritans, but they hadn’t yet received the Holy Spirit? Peter and John came down to lay hands on them and pray for them, and completed the process. The Samaritans had the desire, but they didn’t have the power.

But we need never be troubled if that is the case. If people need more, they can be given more. If they need an infilling of the Holy Spirit to complete the process, we can handle that. You don’t have to be a Pentecostalist to believe in the Holy Spirit!

God has the answer:

“Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ “

And Ezekiel says,

¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.

But you will notice that something has changed. In the first place, Ezekiel preaches to the dry bones; in the second, he speaks to the breath or the Spirit of God. Remember that the same word has both meanings in Hebrew.

Whatever you think of John Wimber, I believe he had an important insight. When he preached, he would often conclude by offering the invitation, “Holy Spirit, come! You are welcome.”

Sometimes we Christians make the work of the Spirit too mechanical. We go through the Biblical principles and explain them to people, and think we have done our job; but it is the Holy Spirit’s work to come as the Lord and life-giver. When it comes down to it, there is a moment when we have to stand aside and invite Him to do his work, bringing glory to God through making Jesus real to our hearts.

God explains the vision to Ezekiel:

“Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, `Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ <sup>12</sup> Therefore prophesy and say to them: `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ 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.’ “

Twice in my life, I have experienced that moment when the Spirit took over and brought life where there had been no evidence of life before. It happened when a group of us, young adults at the time, organised a youth weekend away at a Holiness Mission.

When the leaders of our group were broken by the preaching of the gospel, the younger people were converted, even though they hadn’t been preached to. The Spirit swept through that fundamentalist, mainly Brethren, mission. Lives were touched and changed.

And our God is the God who did that; and he is Ezekiel’s God, and he can do it again today.

Holy Spirit, come! You are welcome!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)