Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #176. Ezekiel 37-42 : He is the God of Hope, Resurrection, and Restoration... Even in The Valley of Dry Bones

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#176. Ezekiel 37-42 : He is the God of Hope, Resurrection, and Restoration... Even in The Valley of Dry Bones · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  Speaker 79: This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  Speaker 79: I'm Stephanie Hickox, and today we have the pleasure of focusing on the vision Ezekiel is most known for: the valley of dry bones.
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  Speaker 79: Today's reading of Ezekiel 37 just may help you convince your kids that God loves math.
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  Speaker 79: It'll remind us of the garden And we'll definitely be affirmed that God's intention is continually to dwell with us.
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  Speaker 79: Certainly every chapter of God's word is worthy of meditation, but Ezekiel 37 will be our main emphasis today because of what it tells us about the nation of Israel and the character of the God we hope in.
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  Speaker 79: When we accurately understand the purposes and the power of this God, it truly transforms our hope and our everyday lives.
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  Speaker 79: Our last reading concluded with God describing His new covenant with His people.
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  Speaker 79: He promised to replace their heart of stone with a heart of flesh and to put His Spirit within them.
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  Speaker 79: today we'll read a vision of that truly coming to life, I'll read the chapter in its entirety
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  Steph: The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley.
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  Steph: It was full of bones.
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  Steph: And he led me around among them And behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.
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  Steph: And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?"
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  Steph: And I answered, O Lord God, you know."
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  Steph: Then he said to me, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.'
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  Thus
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  Steph: Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
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  Steph: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.'"
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  Steph: So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
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  Steph: And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, "Prophesy
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  to the breath,
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  Steph: prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.'"
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  Steph: So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
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  Steph: Behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost.
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  Steph: We are indeed cut off.'
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  Steph: Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people.
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  Steph: And I will bring you into the land of Israel.
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  Steph: And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
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  Steph: Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
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  Steph: I have spoken and I will do it, declares the Lord.
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  Steph: The word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, Take a stick and write on it, for Judah and the people of Israel associated with him.'"
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  Steph: Then take another stick and write on it, for Joseph the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel associated with him, and join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand.
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  Steph: And when your people say to you, will you not tell us what you mean by these?
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  Steph: Say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph that is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will join with it the
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  Steph: stick of Judah and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand.
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  Steph: When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone and
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  Steph: will gather them from all around and bring them to their own land And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel.
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  Steph: And one king shall be over them all, and they shall no longer be two nations and no longer divided into two kingdoms.
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  Steph: They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions.
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  Steph: But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God My servant David shall be king over them, and they
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  Steph: shall all have one shepherd.
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  Steph: They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.
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  Steph: They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob where your fathers lived.
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  Steph: They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever.
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  Steph: And David my servant shall be their prince forever.
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  Steph: I will make a covenant of peace with them.
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  Steph: It shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever.
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  Steph: My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
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  Steph: Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore Let's recall the discouragement and devastation the people have experienced being in exile, knowing that their beautiful chosen city
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  Steph: and their temple have been destroyed.
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  Steph: They have little to hope in, but God keeps telling them, "I still have a plan for you.
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  Steph: I will not abandon you.
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  Steph: Even though you have forsaken me, I will not forsake my covenant and my promises.
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  Steph: And when I am faithful to you, even though all the nations have seen your faithlessness, everyone will know that I am the one true God."
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  Steph: To illustrate the truth that when all hope is gone, our God remains the God of hope, he provides Ezekiel with this vision of the valley of dry bones Thanks to some recent worship songs, you may have a hard
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  Steph: time reading this chapter without getting a beat in your head.
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  Steph: There's a reason that this story inspires an anthem of praise.
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  Steph: God's resurrection power at work here is truly emblematic of His strength Perhaps these long dead, dried up bones being filled with the breath of life and the Spirit of God reminded you about God's creation of Adam and Eve
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  Steph: in the garden when He breathed His spirit into man.
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  Steph: The Hebrew word is ruach, and is sometimes translated breath and sometimes spirit.
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  Steph: Scripture tells us that it's God's breath in which we move and live and have our being.
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  Steph: This story was given to the nation of Israel to display that God was not done with them despite all evidence to the contrary In their desperation, God was calling them back to that hope and that future that Jeremiah
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  Steph: reminded them of Because we've read stories of Elijah and Elisha raising people from the dead, we know that individual resurrection wasn't a completely unfamiliar concept to this people, but a whole nation being resurrected is astounding and unheard of.
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  Steph: That's exactly what God will do for the nation of Israel This resurrection occurring in stages probably symbolizes that Israel's resurrection will happen in stages as well.
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  Steph: Although Israel exists as a nation today, most Jewish people do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
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  Steph: but one day they will acknowledge Him as Lord, and God's Spirit will unite them.
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  Steph: And praise the Lord, you and I are knit into this rich legacy.
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  Steph: We are grafted in, and we can rejoice that often the good promises He has for Israel are also things He wants for His church So make no mistake, this vision is for the nation of Israel But what I
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  Steph: see about the character of God here absolutely encourages me to walk in steadfastness and perseverance You and I can hope in the God of the Bible Even though he is a God that lets things die.
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  Steph: He is a God that allows people and situations to reach rock bottom.
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  Steph: Often you and I will encounter situations in which we don't even know how to pray.
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  Steph: circumstances where we struggle to have faith that God could bring any good.
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  Steph: We will gaze at ashes and wonder how God could possibly bring beauty from them.
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  Steph: But if we remember that God is often a God of protection, but He is not always a God of prevention.
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  Steph: Our God is often a God of restoration and resurrection, of healing and of hope.
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  Steph: He's not always a God that spares us from the diligence and the process of being sanctified through suffering.
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  Steph: When situations in our lives feel so desperate, I want to call us to Hebrews 11:6 faith once again.
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  Steph: And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him."
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  Steph: to please God, you must believe He will reward your faith, and the more lifeless and hopeless the circumstances, the more He's glorified by your belief in His ability to bring goodness out of them.
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  Steph: Be careful.
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  Steph: I'm not saying that our hope rests in a certain outcome for the circumstance.
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  Steph: That is not a biblical promise Instead, our hope rests in the goodness of God to transform us through trials and to bring about a good result He is glorified by your persistence when you don't see fruit, and your
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  Steph: holy stubbornness to not let go of the testimony when it seems that a situation is as dead as the dry bones Ezekiel witnessed And I'm willing to bet that some element of your motherhood has challenged you to cling
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  Steph: to the God of all hope This chapter also displayed God's description of uniting two sticks.
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  Steph: Think about the importance of the rod of Aaron that was placed in the Ark of the Covenant
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  The nation had been divided after Solomon's reign, Here
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  Steph: it's about 570 BC Hundreds of years later, and God promises he will reunite Judah and Israel.
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  Steph: I'm sure you caught the ending where God promised that He will be our dwelling place He will be our God and we will be His people, and every nation will know that He is the Lord.
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  Steph: It makes me imagine the parents of a prodigal child That have tarried in prayer for years while their child was in rebellion.
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  Steph: And eventually, when that child comes home, honors their parents, and devotes their life for the glory of God, that everyone watching will be able to see, wow, all that hope and all those prayers of the parents were worth
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  Steph: it Like this, God the Father will be glorified by his patient and persistent pursuit of his rebellious child, Israel And by The way that Israel becomes sanctified through the exile, trials, and tribulations The chapter concluded saying that the
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  Steph: nations will know that God is the one who sanctifies Israel.
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  Steph: It's through Him, and His Spirit that He will transform the people in holiness But after those beautiful words of hope for their future, in chapters 38 and 39, God introduces a horrible enemy named Gog and warns of his
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  Steph: future attack.
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  Steph: Some of the descriptions of Gog are reminiscent of other enemies of Israel in scripture, and the areas mentioned in these chapters are modern-day Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
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  Steph: They're all part of the former Soviet Union, and during the Cold War People mistakenly believed that this prophecy was about the USSR.
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  Steph: It's noteworthy that all of these locations today are Muslim nations.
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  Steph: It seems most likely that this religion and ideology Will bring about the prophetic fulfillment of Gog that Ezekiel speaks of in chapters 38 and 39.
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  Steph: But do you think that this powerful enemy will be victorious over the Lord or over his people?
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  Steph: Certainly not.
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  Steph: The God of the Bible will be glorified among the nations, and He will use Gog's defeat to further reveal that He is the Lord.
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  Steph: It's this exact purpose that He allows enemies to rise up.
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  Steph: God will rightly be elevated and glorified through being victorious for His people And next we enter the portion of Ezekiel that are some of the most difficult chapters in all of scripture to interpret we'll discuss it more in
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  Steph: future episodes But I'll just point out a few things today The day God revealed this temple vision to Ezekiel was also the day of preparation for Passover.
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  Steph: This was to be a pivotal day for Israel since the time of the Exodus, and it continued to be as Jesus laid down his own life on the Passover to be the sacrifice for our sins.
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  Steph: In this vision, God gives a very detailed description of a gigantic temple.
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  Steph: It's quite different from their previous temple And a being takes Ezekiel around it and they measure it together.
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  Steph: As I mentioned, if you need a couple chapters to convince your child that math is important to God, I think you could camp here for a moment to make your case Tomorrow we'll dig in more and discuss why
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  Steph: these are contested chapters of scripture and why theologians interpret them differently.
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  Steph: But after meditating on God's miraculous breath of life to resurrect even the dry bones, you and I have all we need to continue in faithfulness today Heavenly Father, we praise you for your unparalleled power over our physical and
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  Steph: our spiritual state.
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  Steph: We praise you that you are the God who sanctifies, You don't just call us to holiness, You equip and enable us through your Holy Spirit.
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  Steph: We rejoice once again that you have chosen to walk with us through life and that we have your presence to look forward to for all of eternity.
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  Steph: I pray for every mom feeling lonely or unseen at home, that you would allow her to sense your presence and your nearness today as she strives to be faithful where you've placed her.
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  Steph: I pray your presence would give her clarity about what's important, that it would enable her for consistency in the things that are good but hard, and that you would help her to cast off anything that would distract her
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  Steph: from your call on her days.
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  Steph: May she know how honored you are by her faithfulness to her family I also want to breathe the life and hope into situations that feel so dead and lifeless.
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  Steph: I pray for unwavering faith in your resurrection power, but also deep surrender to the outcomes that you deem best.
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  Steph: Help us to hold this hope and trust simultaneously, and we thank you that your spirit goes with us as we wrestle with that tension day in and day out Thank you, Jesus, that you are our resurrected Lord.
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  Steph: It's in your name that we pray.
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  Steph: Amen.