INTRODUCTION
On July 18th 586 B. C. Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of Jerusalem and totally devastated the city, the temple and everything therein. When they left the city, it laid in ruins. The beautiful temple that Solomon built was no more. The icon of the Jewish religion was gone, totally and completely decimated.
The table of shew-bread was gone
The altar of incense, gone
The golden candle stick, gone
The great ark and the cherubim, gone
All the furniture of the tabernacle; Gone
Nothing was left but ruins.
The Jews in Babylon could not believe their ears. They had reasoned in their heart that Jerusalem and the temple would last forever. Wasn’t this the city and the temple for which Solomon had declared “When your people go to war against their enemies; when they pray to the Lord toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.” It was impossible. Suddenly their whole world had been shaken, shattered. It was one thing to be taken captive it is another for Jerusalem and the Temple of God to be destroyed*. With these two lay their hope. Now hope had been vanquished. As far as they could reason, the destruction of these icons coincided with the abolition of hope.
Perhaps you can identify with these people. Perhaps you too, reason that you are in a hopeless situation. As far as you can see there is no one who can help you, no one who can rescue you from your pit of despair. All is loss and you have resigned yourself to whatever fate may send your way.
Well I invite you to come with me to the Valley of Dry Bone where we will meet with Ezekiel. Just as God sees your despondency he saw Israel despair and he prepared a message for Israel and a message for you in the valley of Dry Bones.
Let us turn to Ezekiel 37;1-10
[Eze. 37:1-10 ]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, Prophesy 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
And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live ; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise , and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone
And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them.
Then said he unto me, prophesy, unto the wind, prophesy, son of man and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God; come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
Ezekiel was taken to the valley of Dry Bones, he was not just taken there but he was placed right smack in the middle of the Bone Valley. Bones were every where as far as his could see. Foot bones, ankle bones, leg bones, rib bones, stirrup bones all types of bones. If was as if the bones had come for a family reunion. Everybody was there. These bones were not laid out in specific order were scattered hither and thither. It was as if someone came and dumped a huge heap of bones in the valley. What a sight!! Death every where! What a stench! The stench of death!
Ezekiel must have wondered about the reason for God bringing him into such a God forsaken place, after all, who would believe that God would be such a place, but yet he was.
Perhaps this is your situation:
You have found yourself smack in the middle of trouble,
Or in the centre of sorrow; or grief:
Or perhaps you have found yourself smack in the middle of failure and defeat.
Smack in the centre of a failing marriage: Wife leaving, husband beating relationship.
Or perhaps just thinking about your work gives you a headache. It brings no joy.
Perhaps you are hooked on drugs and cannot get off.
Every where you look, every way you turn, your senses convey the same images, defeat, failure, loss, despair, destitution. You cannot remember a happy moment. They all lie beyond the horizon of your memory. You reason to yourself, God is not here. God does not care for me. He is not looking out for me. I am all alone.
God has one question for you as he had for Ezekiel- “Can these bones live?” Can the situation that you have found yourself in be changed! Is it possible that these dead dry bones, over which many suns have passed, is it possible that they can live?
Is it possible that this marriage can work?
Is it possible that I can enjoy my work?
Is it possible that I can be relieved of this drug habit?
How can this occur?
How can these bones live; bones cannot live!!
There were no hearst, no lungs, no brains;
There were no alimentary systems;
No circulatory systems, nothing that would speak of life or indicate that life could exist in these bones. Any reasonable, intelligent person would have to conclude NO. Impossible!! If I had asked the question, I am sure that Ezekiel would have a quick answer. But it was not I who asked, it was God!!
Ezekiel had walked with God for too long to pick up God on that challenge and he wisely answered “O LORD GOD, thou knowest.”
What about you? Maybe you are tempted to say, NO, it can’t work! Maybe when you look at the facts of your case, logic suggests only failure. What will you answer when asked: Can this situation be change? Can I survive this? Can I be successful? Can I overcome this situation and turn my life around? I challenge you to answer God in the same way Ezekiel did: “O LORD GOD, thou knowest!”
Ezekiel knew that mere reasoning would not provide the correct answer where God was concerned. We cannot survive spiritually on reason or on intellect. We have to let go of them and rely on faith. Human reason has too bad a record to be trusted. So often it goes contrary to what God declares;
God said he created the world and every thing in it ; Reason says it evolved
God said one woman and one man for a family; Reason says we have a right to love who we and marry who we want
God says certain meats we should eat; Reason says eat anything.
God says the Sabbath keep it Holy; Reason says all days are Holy.
And we can go on and on..
Ezekiel did not rust his reasoning skills to answer God He trusted God to know the answer and we too must trust God to know the solution to our problems as well. Too many people rely on reason rather than the word of God to their own detriment.
[ Five loaves and two fishes]
When we place our faith in God and not intellectual reasoning God will show us the way as he did Ezekiel. He said to Ezekiel say to the dry bone O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ..Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live
And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. Then Ezekiel was commanded to speak to the wind and say thus saith the Lord God; come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. And he did. Ezekiel may have felt pretty stupid talking to the dry bones but he obeyed. And to his amazement bones began to move on their own accord. It was as if they were being directed by some unseen force. Each bone seemed to know exactly where it belonged.
The toe bone connected to the foot bone
And the foot bone to the leg bone
And the leg bone connected to the hip bone until all the bones were connected to form a complete person. After this, it no was problem speaking to the wind. This is the power of the Word of the Almighty God.
SO shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void but shall accomplish that whihch I please. And it shall prosper in that thing which I sent it. Is. 55: 8-11
For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. Ps. 33:9
That same power is available today to help us in our various circumstances. All we have to do is follow God’s guidance, as silly as they may seem to us at first. You would be amazed at the outcome. God is a God of the impossible. Our intellect does not delve into the impossible, we surf the realm of the possible with logic and reasoning. And so often this is the cause of our downfall:
Eve reasoned that the fruit was good to eat and she died
The men of Noah’s time reasoned that rain had never fallen and were washed away in the flood.
Lot reasoned that the east side was better and lost all his possessions along with his wife.
The Jews reasoned that they ought to resist the Babylonians and ended up with Jerusalem being razed to the ground and the temple being destroyed.
The Pharisees and Sadducees reasoned that it was better for one man to die than for a whole nation to perish and ended up killing the Messiah
Many people today reason that Christianity is a myth and they will be no second coming, these will be lost when Jesus finally come.
Brothers and sisters we can not trust to reason when it comes to spiritual things. We must have faith. We must enter into the realm of the impossible on the faith train. This is where God truly demonstrates his power in our lives. This is where God lives.
Too long men have trusted reason to give them answers to the problems that perplexed them and each time they have come up with zilch. On August 10th 1793 the French sought to release themselves from the spirit of oppression which was taking over the country. They over threw the monarchy and clergy and set up their own form of Government which had no use for Christianity, but for reason. They came up with what was to them a new philosophy. A philosophy as far as they were concern
by which the people could be govern;
A philosophy which all men could understand;
A philosophy which had no need for God;
A philosophy which says everything can be explained by logic.
Thus they went about to establish The Goddess of Reason as their deity..
Reason was enthroned. It was seen as the answer to all men’s questions and problems. Of course this experiment failed miserably. In its wake it left a trail of immorality and licentious behaviour that would cause the men of Sodom and Gomorrah to quake. Men’s reasoning will continue to fail as long as they ignore the Word of God and seek for solutions in the annals of their own carnal minds. The greatest feats were not accomplished by the reasoning of carnal minds but by minds imbued with the spirit of God.
Who would have reasoned that the sound of trumpets and shouts would bring down a city wall?
Who would have reasoned that Gideon and three hundred men would rout a whole army?
Who would have reasoned that a man would go into a lions den and come out alive?
Who would have reasoned that three men entering a fiery furnace would live to tell the tale?
Who would have reasoned that the red sea would part and allow a whole nation to pass through on dry ground?
Who would have reasoned that over 1 millions souls would pass over an overflowing Jordan?
Who would have reasoned that the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the dumb would speak and the lame would walk by just a word or touch?
That five loaves and two fish would feed over five thousand people?
Who would have reasoned that Lazarus after spending three days in the grave would live again?
Tell me who can give a rationale to explain these events. They are all grounded in faith.
Tell me, can reason explain the great getting-up morning when this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruptible shall become incorruptible?
Can you by reasoning tell how those faithful who, over the centuries have been stoned,
Sawn asunder,
Slain with the sword,
Fed to lions and
Burnt at the stake;
Can you by reasoning tell how they will be raised to eternal life with Jesus Christ? Oh the joy that will be on the faces of the faithful as they declare O death where is your sting? O grave where is your victory? My friends in the realm of the spiritual, reason has lost its way! Only faith can take you there!
Have faith dear friend in God. [Believe in the impossible. That is where God lives.]
