God’s Resuscitation
Bishop M.L. Maughmer, Jr.
Ezekiel 37:1-5 “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. 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 he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophecy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live.”
FACTS:- CPR is Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation is a emergency life saving procedure that is used to sustain the function of the brain and vital organs by supplying blood and air to them until further measures can be used to restore spontaneous blood circulation in a person that is in cardiac arrest. WATCH THIS:- CPR - doesn’t restart the heart but supplies blood and oxygen flow to it until other measures are taken.
Cardiac relates to the heart.
Pulmonary relates to the lungs – Lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system. The human respiratory system is a series of organs responsible for taking in oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. The primary organs of the respiratory system are the lungs, which carry out this exchange of gases as we breathe.
Resuscitation is the act or an instance of reviving someone from apparent death or from unconsciousness.
OPENING:- Life is uneven, there are ups and downs, there’s good times and bad times, there’s joy and there’s pain, there’s sunshine and rain, there’s devotion and deceit. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
UNDERSTAND:- this that the highs and lows in life are ordained by God because He knew that in this flesh dwelleth no good thing and if we always had high times then pride would take over we would begin to think that we were all that, that I deserve to be noticed and that because of my talent or my skills, my education and my prestige that I deserve to be in this place of elevation and high status. Then we would begin to develop a since of arrogance and start to look down on those that were not so we felt on the same level as we were. We would become critical cynical and judgmental of those who are in a low place. However; when low places come flesh is brought under subjection, pride is not allowed to fester and if I like Paul learn to be content with the low place, not comfortable, but learn to manage the low place understand that God has a purpose for me than I can develop compassion and understanding and when I see someone else who is in a low place I will not be so quick to judge them but have compassion and understanding on them.
WATCH THIS:- The low place or valley experience is to teach you humility and compassion. It is also the place of transition – it is part of the process to get from one mountain top to the next mountain top. In other words to go from Glory to Glory there’s going to be a valley you have to go through. The other thing about the valley is you have to learn how to understand and manage the valley. WATCH THIS:- EXAMPLE:- in one of my favorite movies “The Five Heartbeats” Duck and his brother JT are on stage and get into a fight on stage while they are singing, they ripped each others clothes and started wrestling on the floor. Sarge their manager says “I have to teach them to use everything they got”. He took that incident and turned it into a show stopping act. In the next scene they are on stage and they act like they are starting to fight again when Eddie the lead singer says “Hold up if we are going to do it we are going to have to do it right and they tear off their old clothes and underneath they have new clothes and begin to sing a whole new style of music – they learned to take a situation that was a low place and learn how to use it for something else. If you don’t learn how to understand and manage the low place you will never get out of it. If you don’t learn to manage they valley you will begin to develop an attitude of self pity and say woe is me, why me, God doesn’t even care about me and before you know it you are caught in a negative feed back loop of defeatism, self pity, isolation and after a while you begin to accept this valley experience as reality. Now you find yourself stuck in the valley because you failed to learn how to manage it.
WATCH THIS:- 1 Peter 4:12 “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy”.
IN OUR TEXT:-Ezekiel 37:1 - Ezekiel, who is known as a mountain top prophet (one of the major prophets), suddenly finds himself in the midst of a valley that the spirit of the Lord carried him to. He is in a valley a place of transition and this valley is full of bones.
WATCH THIS:- Without getting to Theologically deep but when you have the time you need to do a study about bones and how bones reveal God truth for example there are 27 bones in the hand and the number 27 means Holy Truth and 26 bones in the foot and 26 means The Gospel – 26x2=52 (26 bones per foot) the number 52 means Gospel Worker or Gospel Witness. says How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth”.
However; here bones represent death, it shows were life once was. It says that there use to activity, there use to be sustenance, but now all there is - is death. The bones have been scattered about this valley, they have been separated by animals, they have been bleached by the sun. There is no unity, no strength, all there is - is dry disparaging death.
Vs #2 says the bones were very dry which means this condition has been this way for some time it wasn’t a new situation, it didn’t just happen today or yesterday for the bones were very dry.
WATCH THIS:- Ezekiel is surrounded by death, despair, and seemingly hopelessness, when God ask Ezekiel a question.
Vs#3 says : “And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones lives”? WATCH THIS:- God was talking to Ezekiel the man not so much Ezekiel the prophet at his time because God said Son of man, which means God is talking to his emotions, his eye sight, his feelings, and all of his scenes. WHY because before Faith kicks in Flesh has to be dealt with. Luke 18:27 talks about what is impossible with man is possible with God. So when God asked the question to Ezekiel “Can these bones live”? He was dealing with Ezekiel’s flesh – Ezekiel in his flesh was looking at a dead situation but when he stepped out of flesh and into FAITH he said “O Lord God, you know”, because what I see it looks impossible but I know that everything thing is possible with you.
Vs#4 “Again he said unto me, Prophesy unto these bones – (talk to that dead situation); and say unto to them (tell them what I am going to tell you to tell them – see God knows if we tell our situation what we want to say we will say things like I quit, I didn’t sign up for this, I can’t take it anymore, God doesn’t even care about me) but He says to Ezekiel say to these bones hear the word of the Lord.
Vs#5 (5 = God’s Grace) says “Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live”. To fully understand and appreciate this scripture you must understand The Law of First Mention.
The Law of First Mention is a guideline that is used for studying Scripture. The law of first mention says that, to understand a particular word or doctrine, we must find the first place in Scripture that word or doctrine is revealed and however that word acts the first time it is mentioned it must always act the same way for all eternity.
WELL:- Genesis 2:7 says “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”.
Breath is the Hebrew word Ruach in Greek it is Pneuma it is a noun. The verb or action it breathe.
When God formed Adam/Man he was a dead lifeless clump of clay but when He breathed RUACH/breath into him he became a living soul.
WATCH THIS:- Vs#7 of Ezekiel 37 “So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I prophesied, there was a noise and behold, a shaking and the bones came together, bone to its bone”. Ezekiel did exactly what God told him to do, not his way but God’s way. When he did that there was a noise Every - time there is a move of God to take place it is always proceeded by a noise then there was a shaking things begin to move and that which was dislocated, separated, scattered, dried up cracked, broken and out of place began to come together. If I fast forward a little these bones became a exceedingly great Army. A Army represents unity, strength, purpose, and loyalty.
CLOSING:- You may be in a valley situation right now. It may seem as though everything is dead, everything is dislocated, messed up, dried up, washed out, and scattered but prophesy to your valley situation and tell it that God breaths the breath of Resuscitation and life must come back.
