Dry Bones - Part 4

I the Lord have Spoken

3^rd July 2015

Towards the end of the story of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel Chapter 37, we read these words last week:

Ezekiel 37v11-14
Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: 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. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 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.'"

We, the English contingent of "the people of Israel", better translated as "the whole house of Israel" have allowed ourselves to sink into a mindset that feels like we're in a decline that will never be reversed. We expect church numbers to fall, our influence to diminish, and our country to sink so low that God will come in judgement. I believe that God says different.

The story of the dry bones tells us that God can raise up the spiritually dead. Of course, we know that's true, because we were once spiritually dead ourselves. We expect God to continue to save people but we expect that He'll only save a few in our lifetimes. Why? How dare we say that God will not revive his church in our nation in our generation? Church growth seems impossible to us, because we've spent many years seeing church decline, and because we're not using the faith God has given us. But God can turn the situation around in our society as quickly as he put flesh on the dry bones. He can save the lost as easily as he put breath in those dead bodies.

"Therefore prophesy" says the Lord God. We must speak to the church. We must "say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: 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.". Those who can see that God's sovereign power is not diminished, His arm is not too short to save, must proclaim to our brothers and sisters in Christ that God will come in power again.

God says "I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them". It's not our efforts, our our eloquence, or even our righteousness that turns this nation around - it's God sovereign choice, God's power, God's grace. And God says, "I will bring you back to the land of Israel.". For Ezekiel's generation, that meant that the Israelites would one day return to the land of Canaan. And they did. For us, I believe it means God is going to make this a Christian country again.

And God says "Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord." God will come to our nation again. He will come in revival power. We have a role to play, speaking the truth to the church and to the lost, but it's God's work and He will do it. It may seem impossible to us, but nothing is impossible with God. No matter how far England has fallen, no matter how grave its sin, no matter how huge its foolishness, no matter how weak its church, God can revive England again. God likes doing the impossible.

And when it happens, we'll realise that it was Him that did it, not us.