The Valley of Dry Bones

SERMON: 2016-08-21--ez3716--the-valley-of-dry-bones SOURCE DURATION: 00:30:16.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 15 ('Amen.') serves as the final concluding affirmation (a form of benediction/prayer) for the sermon content that preceded it. Since this is the last spoken word and typically precedes music or silence, it is selected as the last token belonging to the sermon. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Now, as we turn this morning to Ezekiel chapter 37, I think you will agree with me that for sheer drama, it is hard to beat Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones that we have read together. Listen again to how the chapter is introduced to us, verses one, two, and three actually. The hand of the Lord was upon 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, "O sovereign Lord, you alone know." As the story goes on, as we read together, the Lord says, "I want you to prophesy to these bones," and so he does. And as he prophesies to the bones, a curious thing happens. He hears a noise, the text describes it as a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. I wonder how many of you here this morning remember the children's song that is taken from this chapter, "Dem Dry Bones." Anybody remember it here? Ezekiel cried, "Dem dry bones, Ezekiel cried, "Dem dry bones, O hear the word of the Lord." The head bone connected to the neck bone, the neck bone connected to the back bone, the back bone connected to the thigh bone, and on it goes. Great little song and a great way for kids to learn the parts of the body. So the bones come together not only, but tendons grow on the bones. The bones get covered with flesh and skin. The bodies are reconstituted, but they're still lifeless. And so a second time, the word of the Lord comes to the prophet in the vision, and he says, "Prophecy to the winds, the four winds of the earth, tell the breath to enter into these bodies and bring them to life." And of course, that's what he does, because the Hebrew word for breath and wind and spirit is all the same word. The breath of God enters into these bodies. And so that particular section of the passage ends with, "So I prophesied as he commanded me. Breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army." Pretty impressive, even if it's only a vision. Now here's the thing that we need to understand about biblical visions and biblical prophecies. They typically have many levels of fulfillment historically. And the first level of fulfillment in this particular passage, of course, is Israel's return from captivity in Babylon. You'll recall from the Old Testament, "I trust that when God entered into covenant with Israel in Mount Sinai, the promise was that he would give them the land to inherit in perpetuity unless they sinned. If they sinned, broke covenant with God, the curse of the covenant would come upon them and they would lose their inheritance." Well, you know this story. They sinned repeatedly, and so God fulfilled the curse of the covenant. First, the northern ten tribes were carted off to Assyria around the year 722. Most of those have never come back. They remain scattered all over the earth. And then in 586, Judah and Benjamin, in turn, were carted off to Babylon. And there they languished for many, many years. And that's the context here of bones that are very dry. Israel has said, "Our hope is gone. We are cut off." There is no way that they could bring themselves back to their inheritance. There is no way that they could bring themselves back into the covenant promises of God. It would have to be God who did it. But now remember, though the covenant God made with Israel at Mount Sinai was a conditional covenant dependent upon their obedience, the covenant that he made with Abraham, which preceded the covenant made at Sinai, was an unconditional covenant. And so though God exiled them from the land and punished them because of their sin, he didn't throw them away completely. He promised he would bring them back to their land. Jeremiah puts it this way. He says, "This is what the Lord says. When 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. I'll bring you back. You're going to be gone for 70 years, give or take, but I will bring you back." And historically, we know from the Old Testament, that's exactly what happened. The Babylonians were defeated by the Persians. The Persians under King Cyrus, a pagan king, heard from the Lord that he had to return Israel to the promised land. And so under Zerubbabel and Ezra, and you can read about it in the Old Testament, delegations of the Israelites came back and they resettled in the land, and that is a partial fulfillment of this particular prophecy. The dry bones came alive. They were reconstituted as a people in the promised land. Now that said, that return from exile did not completely fulfill the full intent of the vision of Ezekiel's dry bones as we have read about it. Because consider this, though they came back into the land, they never again, for any extended period of time, became an independent nation. They were always subject to the greater world powers around them. And though they rebuilt the temple, eventually, after a lot of prodding by the prophets, nowhere do we ever read that the glory of God returned to the temple. Very interesting thing. And when, in the fullness of time, Jesus came, entered the temple, really in fulfillment of all of God's promises in the Old Testament, they didn't recognize him for who he was, rejected him, put him to death, invited the punishment, their blood upon themselves and upon their children, you know how that ended. In AD 70, the Romans came, destroyed the temple, destroyed Jerusalem, and once again the people of Israel were scattered all over the world. And this time they remained there for the better part of 1900 years. And it wasn't until May 14, 1948, when the modern state of Israel was reconstituted, that Israel returned to the promised land as a nation. And from that date to this, Jews from all over the world make what they call Aliyah. Aliyah is the process of emigrating from your native country back to the land of Israel to be drawn together as a Jewish nation. Just this past week, 230 Jews left New York City, including many, many young people, to make Aliyah to Israel. And so God continues to draw people from all over the world back to this little piece of territory full of rocks, I might add, because I've been there, called the land of Israel. Now, here's what you need to know, Christians, by and large, are divided about the prophetic significance of this latest return of Jews to Israel. There are those who say it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fulfillment of prophecy. They say that the return to Israel, known as Zionism, is a secular movement by and large. Israel has rejected the Messiah. God has rejected Israel. The church has taken the place of Israel. And all the promises made to Israel in the Old Testament find their spiritual fulfillment in the church. This is known as "replacement theology," and replacement theology has a lot of very scholarly people, including many God-fearing people, who defend it and who believe that is the correct interpretation of what the Bible teaches. The promises made to Israel in the Old Testament need to be read through the New Testament as being fulfilled in the church. That's one school of thought, and many very clever people have a lot of clever arguments to back that up, and not without substantial reason. There's another school of thought, however, and that school of thought says, "No. The Gentile believers have not become a replacement for Israel. They have been grafted into Israel, and Israel has been laid aside for a season so that the fullness of the Gentiles might come in, and then God will return to Israel, call them to Himself, and bring them to repentance and to faith." And one of the Bible texts, of course, that that is based on is Paul's comments in Romans chapter 11, the verses 25, 26, and 27. And Paul says this. This is in the context of, "I'm warning you. If God can cut off Israel for their sin, He can cut you off, too, because Israel is the plant and you are planted into Israel." And then Paul says this, "I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery so that you may not be conceited." In other words, don't let it go to your head that God picked you over the Jewish people. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved as it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion, He will turn godlessness away from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So this interpretation says that all the promises that you read about in the Old Testament as applying to Israel will literally be fulfilled in the history of Israel. The church is not a replacement. It is grafted into Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in and God will then bring Israel back to Himself. So that school of thought interprets the return of Israel and the reconstitution of the State of Israel in 1948 as a fulfillment of prophecy. And one of the prophecies that is often cited in support of that comes from the prophet Isaiah where Isaiah says in chapter 11, the verses 11 and 12, "In that day the Lord will reach out His hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of His people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel and He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth. I will yet extend My hand a second time." Now the second time can refer to the return from exile, the first time being the deliverance from Egypt, or the second time can refer to an additional time after the exile. At any rate, what is happening all over the world is that Jewish people continue to be drawn to the land of Israel. Only time will tell. I often say almost everybody got the first coming of Jesus wrong. And I rather suspect that all the pundits who know how to prophetically describe the second coming of Jesus probably will have a few surprises in store too. But you and I are told to keep our eye on the signs of the times. And I find I follow the developments in the Middle East with great interest because if these promises apply to the state of Israel, then Israel serves as the time clock as to where we are in history's concluding steps towards the return of Jesus. Here's the thing that I find really interesting. For 30 years now, the Temple Institute in Israel has been making preparations for building what they call the Third Temple. The First Temple was the Temple of Solomon. It was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Second Temple was the Temple after the exile rebuilt by Herod, destroyed by the Romans. The Book of Ezekiel ends with a Third Temple. And the Temple Institute in Israel for 30 years now has been working extensively towards the day when this Third Temple will be built. And this is not just idle talk. They have extensive architectural drawings made up. Virtually all the furniture of the Temple has been reproduced, including the golden lampstand. They are in arrangements with cattle breeders in Israel to try to breed an elusive red heifer. They thought some years ago they had one, but he had a couple of white hairs, and that disqualified him. They have red male calves, but no red heifer. You say what's the significance of the red heifer? The red heifer is a necessary part of the law under Moses to make atonement for the sins of the people. More than that, they have just now started a Levitical school to try to identify who are the legitimate priests who can serve in this Temple, and they have begun schools to train them in the art of the priesthood. Very interesting, isn't it? They are absolutely determined and believe that God is calling them to rebuild the Temple. The only thing lacking today in Israel is the political will to do that, and why do you think there is a political will not to do that? What occupies the Temple Mount today? There you have the famous Al, what's it called, Agsa Mosque, sitting on the Temple Mount in the location where the Temple has to be built. Well, if you follow the news at all, then you will know there are Orthodox Jews who are trying to gain ground on that Temple Mount, which is set aside for Muslims, and every time they do, there is a huge riot. And so there's no way to build this Temple on this location without the whole Middle East coming apart. And so it will be a very interesting thing to see what happens as time goes on. I'm just saying there is a movement in Israel today among the Orthodox. Not everybody shares this because Israel is primarily a secular nation today, but there is big money and there is big time and effort being invested in trying to bring about the fulfillment of these literal promises that God has made to Israel. Where will it all go? I don't pretend to know, but I follow it with keen interest because I think I know the Lord Jesus has told us to keep our eye that when the fig begins to bloom, the end draws near. Now that said, and this is really important, there is no doubt at all in my mind that the ultimate fulfillment of this particular prophecy, and remember I said Old Testament prophecies have multiple levels of fulfillment. That's why we get it so wrong so many times. The ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the one who died for our sins. He is the one who lived in perfect obedience to the Father. He is eligible for all the blessings that God promised to Abraham so many years ago. He earned for us the righteousness that we need to be able to stand in God's presence and to inherit his kingdom, in him all the promises of God are yea and amen. Everything God ever promised Abraham and to his offspring through faith becomes yours and mine. And so the message of the Bible is that when by faith we repent of our sins, when by faith we know that we are not worthy to receive the promised inheritance that God has for his children, but we know that it's been given to us in Jesus and we cling to Jesus in faith, then he brings us to life and he empowers us with resurrection life of which this passage speaks that dead bones come alive, flesh and tendons and skin is formed on our body so to speak and the breath of God raises up his people to be a mighty army. Here is how Paul writes about it in Ephesians chapter 2, "And you he made alive when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind and so we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses did what? Made us alive together with Christ." If you're in Christ, you are raised from the dead, your dry bones are empowered to live and you are being called forth to occupy the inheritance that God has for the children of Abraham. Now as we wind this up, it's very helpful I think to remember that this happens biblically on two levels and again that's where many, many people go wrong because they can't see the difference between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. The first level where this happens is of course when Jesus returns in glory. John 5, 28, 29, "A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to life to live and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." The time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Can you imagine what it's going to look like on the day of Christ's return? I mean I can't even begin to picture this, can you? The voice of the archangel shouts the trump of God, Jesus Christ comes in glory and every dead person that has ever lived, doesn't matter if they were buried cremated or drowned in the ocean, all the bodies are going to come to life and on that day those whose names are not written in the book of life, who have not trusted in Jesus or walked with him are going to be cast out into the utter darkness because they will not inherit the kingdom of God. But those who are the children of God, those who are the promised seed of Abraham, they will be raised to newness of life and they will hear those words of the Lord Jesus, come blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. Whatever Paul says eye has not seen, ear has not heard, the heart of man has begun to imagine what God has prepared for those who love him. So no matter how miserable a person's life has been, no matter where in the social ladder they have found themselves in the here and now, in Galatians Paul says it doesn't matter if you're male or female, slave or freak, Greek or Jew, good, bad or indifferent, in Christ you are a child of God and you are an heir of God's kingdom. We're going to spend eternity worshiping God for his incredible redemption, for bringing dead bones to life, literally. Literally you're going to live and you're going to live forever, the promise of God. But remember it's not limited to the day of tomorrow because through the Holy Spirit we have the first fruits of that redemption already today. Paul again, Ephesians 1.13 and 14, having believed, this is being written to Gentiles, having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. Remember the seal is a mark of ownership. He's got his name written on you when you become a Christian. He says you are mine, you belong to me. That's why Roberta's song earlier is so powerful. May not feel much like it when you're in the middle of the fire or when you're going through the water, but don't fear, says God, you are mine. I've got your number and nobody can separate me from your love. That's what Ken has been preaching about in Sunday Nights and then he goes on, who is a deposit, the Holy Spirit is, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. Who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance. Now we all know what a deposit is, you buy something and you put money down. What does that mean? That means it's yours and you have promised to pay the rest. If you don't pay the rest, you forfeit your down payment in most cases. So God isn't just idly saying to you, well, you know, the day is coming when your dead bones are literally going to rise out of the grave. God says, no, I've got a deposit, I'm just not making idle promises, I am guaranteeing that this is going to happen. And what is the deposit? The deposit is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit given to the church is God's guarantee that what he's begun in you, he will bring to completion and the Holy Spirit takes the inheritance that we have in Christ and he gives us the first fruits, that is to say, he makes us alive now. He breeds life into these dead bones. Remember by nature, I'm dead to God, I don't hear him, I don't care about him, I am just led by my own passions and my desires, I can't make life work, it ends up inevitably in destruction and in the grave, but I come to Jesus and Jesus makes me alive. He brings the dead bones together, then he puts flesh on the bones and skin on the bones and then he breathes his spirit into me so that something on the inside gives me a foretaste of that which is to come. Remember that verse I quoted so often, eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has prepared for those who love him, but what's the rest of the verse? God has granted us or revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. So it doesn't matter how dead you or I feel, it doesn't matter how abandoned we sometimes feel by God in the middle of all the struggles and the burdens and the battles of life. God says in Christ your mind, my name is written on you and the Holy Spirit is in you to fulfill my word and to bring you to life and if you will just listen to me, bow before me and trust me that I am going to make your dead bones live, I will help you hear me, I will give you a new desire and a new ability to do my will for my glory. 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