Dry Bones - Part 1
Can these bones live?
12th June 2015
Perhaps the best-known passage in the book of Ezekiel is the first half of Chapter 47. It begins:
Ezekiel 37v1-3
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know."
The prophet Ezekiel was one of the many Jews who had been captured by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar around 600 BC and forcibly resettled in Babylonia. That generation of God's people must have been devastated. They'd lost their homes. They'd lost their country. The temple had been destroyed.
They didn't understand what was happening. They'd believed theologically that the temple would never be destroyed and they would never be driven from their land. But their theology had been wrong. They must have wondered if God had deserted them.
Some of us have had our theology challenged, too. Many English Christians once thought that England would always be a Christian country. They once believed that the Bible would always be respected here. They never imagined we would be arrested for quoting scripture, or sacked for wearing a cross, or speaking about our beliefs. They never imagined the government would pass some of the laws that have recently been enacted. Those Christians were mistaken. Now, British Christians are a small minority with little influence. We, our beliefs and our God are despised by many people, including many influential writers and celebrities. It's like we're living in a foreign country.
Like Ezekiel's generation, we're wondering why God let it happen, what we're supposed to do about it, and what the future may hold for us.
And God speaks to us, just as he spoke to Ezekiel.
The spirit of the Lord showed Ezekiel a valley. And Ezekiel saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. And I look around the town where I live, and I can see them, too. And so can you, dear Christian. God asked Ezekiel, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And He asks us the same question. Can England be saved? Can revival come here?
Ezekiel replied, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know".
Is revival coming to England? Will we see it in our lifetime? God alone knows. But I find a rising expectation in my heart that the answer is "Yes!" And when God brought me back to this passage, I found an excitement, which I think came from the Holy Spirit, that enables me to believe that revival is coming.
Can my town, and yours, and England, see revival soon? The answer to that question is, of course, "If God wants us to, then yes!" If God commands revival, they'll be revival. If He doesn't, there won't. He is the sovereign Lord.
And I now believe that God will command revival in England soon.
I believe this because it's what the Holy Spirit seems to me to be saying. And I believe it because it seems impossible. How can dry bones live? But God specialises in the impossible.