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The Prophecy of The Valley of Dry Bones Explained _ DEEP BIBLE STORIES · truthunedited

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  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard someone preach Ezekiel 37 and say,
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  Speaker 1: Those dry bones are your dead dreams? Maybe you have
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  Speaker 1: heard it so many times that the phrase feels familiar now.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you have prayed it over your marriage, your children,
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  Speaker 1: your health, your finances, your calling, or something in your
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  Speaker 1: life that once had hope. but now feels like it
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  Speaker 1: has been dead for far too long. Maybe you have
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  Speaker 1: stood in your own private valley and whispered, God, please
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  Speaker 1: breathe on this again. By the end of this video,
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  Speaker 1: you are going to understand what the Valley of Dry
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  Speaker 1: Bones really means in its original biblical context, who the
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  Speaker 1: bones actually represent. whether the valley should be understood as
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  Speaker 1: a physical location or a prophetic vision, why the bones
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  Speaker 1: were described as very dry, why God asked, can these
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  Speaker 1: bones live, why the bodies came together before breath entered them,
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  Speaker 1: and how this vision connects with creation, exile, restoration, resurrection,
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  Speaker 1: and the work of the Spirit of God throughout Scripture.
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  Speaker 1: But more than that, you are going to understand how
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  Speaker 1: to face the dry bone seasons of your own life
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  Speaker 1: without pretending they are not painful. You are going to
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  Speaker 1: learn the difference between human reconstruction and divine life. between
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  Speaker 1: speaking your own wishes and standing on what God has
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  Speaker 1: actually said, between something looking restored and something truly being alive.
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  Speaker 1: And when this valley is finally opened up from Genesis
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  Speaker 1: to Ezekiel to the New Testament, I believe it will
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  Speaker 1: change the way you pray, change the way you look
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  Speaker 1: at hopeless situations. and change the way you understand the
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  Speaker 1: God who does not need favorable conditions to create life.
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  Speaker 1: Because the greatest revelation in Ezekiel 37 is not that
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  Speaker 1: bones can move, it is that when human possibility has ended,
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  Speaker 1: God has not. We are about to walk into Ezekiel's
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  Speaker 1: valley and discover what those dry bones really mean. I
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  Speaker 1: want you to resist the temptation to look at the bones.
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  Speaker 1: Not yet, because if all you see is a valley
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  Speaker 1: filled with skeletons, you will almost certainly reduce Ezekiel 37
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  Speaker 1: to a miracle story about impossible situations. and it is
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  Speaker 1: about divine power over impossibility, but that is not where
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel begins. Before you can understand the bones, you need
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  Speaker 1: to understand the man who was forced to walk among them.
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  Speaker 1: You need to know where he was living, what had
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  Speaker 1: happened to his country, what had happened to his temple,
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  Speaker 1: what had happened to his people, and what had happened
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  Speaker 1: in his own house. Because when God asks Ezekiel, son
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  Speaker 1: of man, can these bones live? He is not asking
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  Speaker 1: that question of a comfortable preacher standing safely behind a pulpit.
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  Speaker 1: He is asking it of an exile who has watched
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  Speaker 1: almost everything that once defined his world collapse. His name
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  Speaker 1: is Ezekiel. Ezekiel 1.3 introduces him as Ezekiel the priest,
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  Speaker 1: the son of Buzi. His Hebrew name carries the idea
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  Speaker 1: that God strengthens or God makes strong. We know almost
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  Speaker 1: nothing about his father, Buzi. But the fact that Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: is explicitly identified as a priest becomes enormously important. He's
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  Speaker 1: not simply a prophet who happens to know a little
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  Speaker 1: about temple worship. His imagination has been shaped by holiness, sacrifice, purity,
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  Speaker 1: impurity— and priesthood, sanctuary, glory, and the presence of God. That
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  Speaker 1: is why the book of Ezekiel is saturated with temple
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  Speaker 1: imagery and priestly concerns. Ezekiel was both priest and prophet,
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  Speaker 1: although exile removed him from the Jerusalem temple, where priestly
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  Speaker 1: service ordinarily belonged. And there is an intriguing mystery in
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  Speaker 1: the very first verse of his book, Ezekiel 1-1 begins,
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  Speaker 1: Now it came to pass, in the thirtieth year. The
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  Speaker 1: text never explicitly tells us what that thirtieth year refers to.
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  Speaker 1: Some interpreters have suggested Ezekiel is telling us his age,
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  Speaker 1: which would create a painful irony. The age around which
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  Speaker 1: a Levite could enter significant sanctuary service becomes the period
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  Speaker 1: when Ezekiel instead receives a prophetic commission hundreds of miles
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  Speaker 1: away from Jerusalem. Other scholars have proposed different chronological reference points.
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  Speaker 1: So be careful when you hear somebody confidently preach, Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: was exactly 30 years old. It is possible, perhaps even
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  Speaker 1: attractive as an interpretation, but the text does not settle
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  Speaker 1: the question beyond dispute. What it does settle is the
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  Speaker 1: next date. Ezekiel receives his prophetic call in the fifth
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  Speaker 1: year of King Jehoiakim's exile. That takes us to approximately
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  Speaker 1: 593 or 592 BC, depending on how the ancient regnal
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  Speaker 1: dates are calculated. But to understand why Ezekiel is in
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  Speaker 1: Babylon at all, we need to move backward a few years.
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  Speaker 1: In 2 Kings 24, Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar comes against Jerusalem.
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  Speaker 1: King Jehoiakim surrenders, and in 597 BC, the Babylonians deport
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  Speaker 1: the king, members of the royal household, officials, warriors, craftsmen,
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  Speaker 1: and other significant members of Judean society. Ezekiel appears to
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  Speaker 1: belong to that deported community. He is not prophesying from Jerusalem.
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  Speaker 1: He is part of the population forcibly removed from Judah
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  Speaker 1: and resettled in Babylonia. And this is where geography clears
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  Speaker 1: up something many people picture incorrectly when reading Ezekiel. Ezekiel 1.1-3
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  Speaker 1: and Ezekiel 3.15 place the prophet among the exiles beside
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  Speaker 1: the river or canal, Chebar at a settlement called Tel Aviv,
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  Speaker 1: in the land of the Chaldeans. Do not picture modern
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  Speaker 1: Tel Aviv on Israel's Mediterranean coastline. This is a completely
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  Speaker 1: different place. Ezekiel's Tel Aviv was in ancient Babylonia, in
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  Speaker 1: what is now Iraq. Its exact location has not been
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  Speaker 1: identified with certainty, but the Chabar is widely associated with
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  Speaker 1: an ancient Babylonian canal known from cuneiform evidence as the
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  Speaker 1: Nar Kabari, a major waterway running through the region of
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  Speaker 1: Nippur in south-central Mesopotamia. Nippur itself is an archaeological site
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  Speaker 1: in present-day Iraq. So when Ezekiel sees his visions, mentally
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  Speaker 1: move east from Jerusalem, across the ancient Near East, into Mesopotamia.
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel is preaching the God of Israel while physically living
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  Speaker 1: on foreign soil. And already, before we ever reach chapter 37,
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel is being taught something profound. The people may have
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  Speaker 1: been removed from Jerusalem, but God... has not been removed
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  Speaker 1: from them. Ezekiel chapter 1 begins beside a Babylonian canal
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  Speaker 1: and the heavens open there. Think about what that means
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  Speaker 1: psychologically for an exile. The temple is back in Jerusalem.
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  Speaker 1: The land is far away. The priest is displaced from
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  Speaker 1: the sanctuary. He is standing in pagan Babylon, surrounded by
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  Speaker 1: the machinery of an empire that has humiliated his nation,
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  Speaker 1: and suddenly the glory of the God of Israel appears
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  Speaker 1: in Babylon. God is showing Ezekiel from the beginning, You
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  Speaker 1: may have been taken out of Jerusalem, but I have
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  Speaker 1: not been confined inside Jerusalem. that matters because ancient peoples
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  Speaker 1: commonly associated gods with lands, temples, and national territories. Babylon's
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  Speaker 1: victory could easily be interpreted as Babylon's gods defeating Judah's god.
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  Speaker 1: But Ezekiel sees something completely different. The throne of Yahweh
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  Speaker 1: is mobile. The living creatures move. The wheels move. The
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  Speaker 1: glory moves. God is not a defeated local deity trapped
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  Speaker 1: beneath the ruins of his temple. He is enthroned above creation,
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  Speaker 1: and Babylon itself lies beneath his sovereignty. Now bring that
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  Speaker 1: back into Ezekiel 37, when the God who rules even
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  Speaker 1: in Babylon asks, Can these bones live? Ezekiel already knows
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  Speaker 1: he is speaking with a God whose authority does not
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  Speaker 1: stop at Israel's borders, but the catastrophe gets worse before
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  Speaker 1: the valley appears. When Ezekiel was deported in 597 BC, Jerusalem...
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  Speaker 1: had not yet been completely destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar installed Zedekiah as king.
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  Speaker 1: This meant the first exiles could still look westward and
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  Speaker 1: imagine that perhaps Jerusalem would survive, perhaps the temple would remain.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps the Davidic kingdom would continue. Perhaps they would go
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  Speaker 1: home soon. Jeremiah even had to confront false prophets offering
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  Speaker 1: quick promises of return. Jeremiah 29 tells the exile something
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  Speaker 1: much harder. Build houses, plant gardens, marry, have children, seek
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  Speaker 1: the welfare of the city where you have been sent.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, this exile is not ending next Tuesday.
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  Speaker 1: Then Zedekiah rebels against Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar returns. Jerusalem is besieged.
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  Speaker 1: And in 586 BC, catastrophe arrives. 2 Kings 25 describes
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  Speaker 1: the city being breached. The temple is burned. The king's
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  Speaker 1: palace is burned. Jerusalem's houses are burned. The walls are
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  Speaker 1: broken down. More people are deported. Zedekiah attempts escape. is captured,
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  Speaker 1: watches his sons killed before him, and then his eyes
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  Speaker 1: are put out. The Davidic monarchy as Judah knew it
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  Speaker 1: politically collapses. The temple Solomon built is destroyed. Try to
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  Speaker 1: feel what that meant instead of merely remembering the date
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  Speaker 1: for a Bible quiz. This was not simply losing a war.
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  Speaker 1: Their entire theological world seemed to be collapsing. God promised
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  Speaker 1: Abraham land. Now they had been removed from the land.
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  Speaker 1: God established David's dynasty. Now there was no Davidic king
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  Speaker 1: reigning securely in Jerusalem. God placed his name in the temple.
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  Speaker 1: Now the temple was ashes. Jerusalem was supposed to be Zion.
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  Speaker 1: Now Babylon had broken through its walls. And the people
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  Speaker 1: had to wake up the next morning and ask a
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  Speaker 1: terrifying question. What does it mean to be the people
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  Speaker 1: of God when almost every visible sign of being the
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  Speaker 1: people of God has disappeared? That is the question underneath
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  Speaker 1: the bones. And Ezekiel does not experience this crisis merely
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  Speaker 1: as a national news story. His prophetic ministry becomes painfully personal.
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  Speaker 1: In Ezekiel 24, at the time Jerusalem comes under siege,
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  Speaker 1: God tells Ezekiel that the desire of thine eyes will
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  Speaker 1: be taken from him. His wife dies. Ezekiel is commanded
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  Speaker 1: to embody the shock that Judah will experience when the sanctuary,
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  Speaker 1: the desire of their eyes, is taken away. So when
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel eventually stands in a valley symbolizing devastating loss, remember
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  Speaker 1: who is standing there. A displaced priest, a deported citizen,
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  Speaker 1: a man who has watched his nation collapse, a prophet
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  Speaker 1: whose own wife has died, a servant of God who
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  Speaker 1: spent years announcing judgment and then lived long enough to
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  Speaker 1: see that judgment actually arrive. Ezekiel does not preach hope,
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  Speaker 1: because he has never buried anything. He preaches hope after
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  Speaker 1: loss has entered his own house. That changes the emotional
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  Speaker 1: temperature of chapter 37. There are people listening to this
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  Speaker 1: who understand that kind of faith better now than they
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  Speaker 1: did thirty years ago. When you were younger, hope could
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  Speaker 1: sometimes sound uncomplicated. Then life happened. You stood beside hospital beds.
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  Speaker 1: You buried people whose phone numbers are still somewhere in
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  Speaker 1: your contacts. You watched children make choices you could not control.
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  Speaker 1: You experienced prayers that were answered beautifully and other prayers
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  Speaker 1: whose answers you still do not understand. Maybe you learned
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  Speaker 1: that faith does not prevent you from ever entering valleys.
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37 is not spoken to people who have never suffered.
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  Speaker 1: It is spoken into the aftermath of catastrophe. And now
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  Speaker 1: look at where chapter 37 sits inside the book of
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel because this is one of those details that changes
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  Speaker 1: the entire interpretation. Early in the book, Ezekiel announces judgment.
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  Speaker 1: Chapters 8 through 11 give him a horrifying vision of
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  Speaker 1: corruption and idolatry connected with Jerusalem and the temple. Then
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel sees the glory of God departing. Do not miss
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  Speaker 1: how tragic that is. The sanctuary still exists physically, but
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  Speaker 1: God's glory withdraws from it. Then Ezekiel 24 announces the
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  Speaker 1: siege of Jerusalem. Later, in Ezekiel 33.21, a fugitive finally
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  Speaker 1: arrives with the words everyone feared. The city is smitten.
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  Speaker 1: Jerusalem has fallen. That report becomes a hinge in the book. Afterward,
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  Speaker 1: restoration becomes increasingly prominent. Ezekiel 34 condemns Israel's false shepherds
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  Speaker 1: and promises that God himself will shepherd his flock. Then
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  Speaker 1: comes an extraordinary promise concerning my servant David, a future
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  Speaker 1: shepherd over God's people. Ezekiel 36 speaks of restored land, cleansing,
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  Speaker 1: a new heart, a new spirit, and God's own spirit
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  Speaker 1: dwelling within the people. Then comes Ezekiel 37. Dry bones
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  Speaker 1: rise and the divided nation is reunited. Later chapters move
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  Speaker 1: toward restored worship and finally the return of divine glory.
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  Speaker 1: Do you see what this means? Ezekiel 37 is not
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  Speaker 1: an isolated inspirational story dropped randomly into the book. The
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  Speaker 1: glory departs. The city falls. Hope collapses. God promises cleansing.
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  Speaker 1: God promises His Spirit. Then God shows Ezekiel a valley
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  Speaker 1: of death, and after the valley, God promises reunification, one shepherd,
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  Speaker 1: covenant peace, sanctuary, and His dwelling among His people. The
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  Speaker 1: bones sit inside a much larger theology of departure and return,
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  Speaker 1: judgment and restoration, exile and homecoming, death and renewed life.
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  Speaker 1: And there is another chapter you absolutely must read with
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37, the chapter immediately before it. Ezekiel 36.24 says,
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  Speaker 1: I will take you from among the heathen and gather
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  Speaker 1: you out of all countries and will bring you into
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  Speaker 1: your own land. Then verse 25 promises cleansing. Verse 26 says,
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  Speaker 1: A new heart also will I give you, and a
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  Speaker 1: new spirit will I put within you. Verse 27 goes
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  Speaker 1: even further, And I will put my spirit within you.
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  Speaker 1: Then the next chapter opens with dead bones. That is
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  Speaker 1: not accidental. Chapter 36 gives the promise in theological language.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter 37 turns the promise into a vision you can see. Gathering, cleansing,
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  Speaker 1: new heart, new spirit, God's spirit within them. Then bones gather,
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  Speaker 1: bodies form, breath enters, life returns. Ezekiel 37 is Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: 36 dramatized. But even Ezekiel 36 is reaching backward into
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  Speaker 1: something older. If you want to understand what God is doing,
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  Speaker 1: go all the way back to Deuteronomy. Before Israel even
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  Speaker 1: fully possesses the land, Moses warns them about covenant rebellion.
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  Speaker 1: Deuteronomy 28 lays out devastating covenant curses, including defeat, scattering,
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  Speaker 1: and exile among the nations. This means Babylon is not
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  Speaker 1: evidence that God's word failed. In a terrible sense, Babylon
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  Speaker 1: demonstrates that God's warnings were true. But Moses does not
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  Speaker 1: stop in Deuteronomy 28. Go to Deuteronomy 30. Moses describes
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  Speaker 1: a future in which Israel has experienced blessing and curse
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  Speaker 1: and has been scattered among the nations. Then God promises
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  Speaker 1: to gather them. Deuteronomy 33 speaks of God returning and
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  Speaker 1: gathering his people from the nations. Verse 5 speaks of
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  Speaker 1: bringing them again into the land. Verse 6 speaks of
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  Speaker 1: God circumcising their hearts so that they will love Him.
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  Speaker 1: Now compare that with Ezekiel 36, scattered among nations, gathered,
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  Speaker 1: returned to the land, inner transformation. Then compare it with
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37, a scattered people, restored, spirit given. Return to
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  Speaker 1: the land. Do you see how deep the roots go?
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  Speaker 1: The valley of dry bones is not God improvising because
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  Speaker 1: history got out of control. The vision belongs to the
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  Speaker 1: covenant storyline announced generations earlier. The God who warned that
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  Speaker 1: rebellion would lead to exile is now declaring that exile
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  Speaker 1: will not have the final word over his redemptive purposes.
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  Speaker 1: That also means this restoration is not based on Israel
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  Speaker 1: proving itself worthy. Ezekiel 36 says something we sometimes rush
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  Speaker 1: past because it is uncomfortable. God says in verse 22,
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  Speaker 1: I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel,
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  Speaker 1: but for mine holy name's sake, that changes the whole valley.
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  Speaker 1: These bones are not lying there because they were secretly
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  Speaker 1: wonderful people who merely had bad circumstances. Judgment came because
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  Speaker 1: of profound covenant rebellion. God's restoration, therefore, does not celebrate
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  Speaker 1: Israel's hidden potential. It reveals God's faithfulness to His own
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  Speaker 1: name and purposes. There is no human potential left in bones, anyway.
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  Speaker 1: That is the point. Dry bones cannot impress God. Dry
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  Speaker 1: bones cannot become more disciplined. Dry bones cannot promise to
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  Speaker 1: try harder. Dry bones cannot produce revival. Whatever happens next
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  Speaker 1: must come from outside the bones. Now we can finally
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  Speaker 1: enter chapter 37. Ezekiel 37.1 says, The hand of the
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  Speaker 1: Lord was upon me. Do not skip that expression. Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: has used it before. The hand of God signifies divine seizure,
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  Speaker 1: prophetic empowerment, God taking hold of the prophet for revelation.
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel is not creating this experience through meditation or imagination.
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  Speaker 1: God initiates it. Then Ezekiel says, God carried me out
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  Speaker 1: in the spirit of the Lord and set me down
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  Speaker 1: in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.
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  Speaker 1: Now we can answer one of the questions from the
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  Speaker 1: hook carefully. Was this a literal physical valley? The text
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  Speaker 1: presents the experience using the language Ezekiel uses elsewhere for
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  Speaker 1: Spirit-given prophetic visions. In Ezekiel 8, he describes being lifted
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  Speaker 1: and brought to Jerusalem in the visions of God. In
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 11.24, the Spirit brings him back to the exiles
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  Speaker 1: in a vision of Here again the Spirit carries him.
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  Speaker 1: So the safest reading is that Ezekiel is describing a
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  Speaker 1: prophetic vision, not giving us the location of a mass
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  Speaker 1: grave we can visit today. Could the imagery have reflected
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  Speaker 1: actual battlefields and unburied dead familiar to the ancient world? Certainly,
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  Speaker 1: could a real valley have supplied imagery for the vision? Possibly,
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  Speaker 1: but Ezekiel does not name a physical valley or give
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  Speaker 1: us geographical coordinates. The significance lies in what God shows
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  Speaker 1: him there. And there is an interesting detail in the Hebrew.
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  Speaker 1: The word translated valley, or sometimes plain, is bikah. Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: has used that same word earlier in Ezekiel 3.22-23, when
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  Speaker 1: God tells him to go out into the plain, where
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel again encounters the glory of the Lord. Whether Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: 37 intends us to imagine exactly the same physical location
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  Speaker 1: cannot be proved, and we should not preach what Scripture
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  Speaker 1: does not say, but the literary echo is worth noticing.
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel has encountered divine glory in the Bika before. Now
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  Speaker 1: he is brought into a Bika filled with death. And
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  Speaker 1: now something happens that would have been especially disturbing to
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel precisely because he was a priest. Bones. Human bones.
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  Speaker 1: Numbers 19.16 teaches that touching a human bone, a corpse
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  Speaker 1: or a grave, brings ritual uncleanness. Leviticus 21 places particular
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  Speaker 1: restrictions upon priests concerning contact with the dead. So God
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  Speaker 1: brings a priest into a vision saturated with the imagery
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  Speaker 1: of death and impurity. And he does not allow Ezekiel
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  Speaker 1: to remain at the edge. Verse 2 says, God caused
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  Speaker 1: me to pass by them round about. Ezekiel has to
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  Speaker 1: walk among them. Imagine the scene. Everywhere he looks, bones,
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  Speaker 1: a skull here, a ribcage there, a femur separated from
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  Speaker 1: the body to which it once belonged. No names, no graves,
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  Speaker 1: no markers, no family standing beside them, no dignity of
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  Speaker 1: burial just remains. And the absence of burial... would itself
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  Speaker 1: carry meaning. Throughout the Old Testament, being denied burial and
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  Speaker 1: having one's body exposed can function as imagery of humiliation
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  Speaker 1: and covenant judgment. Deuteronomy 28 warns rebellious Israel that their
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  Speaker 1: bodies will become food for birds and animals. Jeremiah uses
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  Speaker 1: similar imagery when announcing judgment. Even more strikingly, Ezekiel himself
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  Speaker 1: had already used scattered bones as judgment imagery. In Ezekiel 6.5,
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  Speaker 1: God says he will lay the dead bodies of Israelites
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  Speaker 1: before their idols and scatter your bones round about your altars.
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  Speaker 1: Now stop. Earlier in Ezekiel, scattered bones belonged to judgment.
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  Speaker 1: Later in Ezekiel, scattered bones become the material of restoration.
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  Speaker 1: That is a huge theological reversal. The God who judged
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  Speaker 1: is now promising restoration beyond judgment. The bones are not
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: proof that God never judged Israel. They are proof that
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: even after judgment has done its terrible work, God's redemptive
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: purpose has not been exhausted. Then Ezekiel notices two things
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: in verse 2. There were very many, and they were
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: very dry. Those details are doing theological work. Very many.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: This is not an isolated tragedy. We are looking at
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: corporate death. Then very dry, not merely dry, very dry.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Whatever happened did not happen five minutes ago. These bones
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: have been exposed. Time has passed. Every ordinary biological possibility
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: has disappeared. And later God himself tells us why dryness
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is the right image. Ezekiel 37.11 says, Son of man,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: these bones are the whole house of Israel. There is
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: your answer. Not primarily Ezekiel's career, not primarily your business,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: not primarily your marriage, not primarily your abandoned dream. God
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: interprets his own symbol. These bones are the whole house
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of Israel. But even that phrase, whole house of Israel,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: contains another layer many surface readings miss. By Ezekiel's lifetime,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Israel had been politically divided for centuries. After Solomon's reign,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: The kingdom split. The northern tribes became the kingdom commonly
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: called Israel, with Ephraim often serving as a representative name.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: The southern kingdom centered on Judah and Jerusalem. Then, in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: 722 BC, long before Ezekiel's ministry, Assyria conquered the northern kingdom.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Judah survived. Until Babylon. Now Judah too has fallen. So
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: when God says in Ezekiel 37 11 that the bones
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: represent the whole house of Israel, He is speaking beyond
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the immediate Judean exile sitting beside Ezekiel. And the second
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: half of Ezekiel 37 proves it. Beginning in verse 15,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel receives another sign. One stick represents Judah. Another represents Joseph,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: associated with Ephraim. God joins the sticks. Then verse 22 says,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I will make them one nation. That means the dry
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: bone vision and the two stick sign interpret one another.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Death is being reversed. Division is being reversed. Exile is
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: being reversed. A fractured covenant people is being brought toward
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: restoration under one king. So Ezekiel 37 is not simply
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: about resurrection imagery. It is about reconstitution. God is rebuilding
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a people. And listen to what those people are saying
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: in verse 11. Our bones are dried. and our hope
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: is lost. We are cut off for our parts. There
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: are three layers of despair there. Our bones are dried.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Our hope is lost. We are cut off. Their condition
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: has become their theology. They have looked at Babylon, Jerusalem,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the destroyed temple, the absence of the Davidic king, years
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: of exile, and concluded, there is no future left for us.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: That is why very dry matters. The bones... are physically
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: very dry in the vision because the people are emotionally
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and nationally beyond ordinary hope in the interpretation. They do
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: not merely hurt. They have reached the point where they
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: can no longer imagine restoration. Some of you know the difference.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: there is a kind of pain that still prays loudly.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Then there is a deeper pain that gets quiet. You
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: stop bringing it up. You stop expecting anything. You tell yourself,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I am simply being realistic. And perhaps you are being
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: realistic about your own power. But sometimes what we call
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: acceptance is actually hope that has become afraid to breathe.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: That is where Israel is. And notice what God does
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: not do. He does not tell Ezekiel to deny what
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: he sees. He does not say, Ezekiel, don't look at
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the bones, because looking at negative circumstances will weaken your faith.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: God himself makes him walk around them. That is important.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Biblical faith is not denials. God's answer to hopelessness begins
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: with truth. Look at them, Ezekiel. See how many. See
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: how dry. Understand exactly how impossible this is. Then comes
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: verse 3, And he said unto me, Son of man,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: can these bones live? Now that question should sound completely
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: different than it did twenty minutes ago, because now you
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: know who Ezekiel is. You know what he has lost.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: You know where he is. You know what Jerusalem has suffered.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: You know who the bones represent. You know the covenant background.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: You know the bones symbolize generations of national fracture culminating
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: in catastrophic exile. And now God looks at one mortal
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: prophet standing in the middle of that history and asks,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Can these bones live? Even the title God uses for
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel matters. son of man. In Ezekiel, this expression repeatedly
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: emphasizes the prophet's humanity and mortality before the transcendent God.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: In Hebrew, Ben-Adam can carry the simple force of human one,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: literally son of Adam slash man, so notice the contrast.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: A mortal son of Adam is standing among the remains
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of mortal human beings, and God asks him about life.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Human being, can humanity do anything with this? Can a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: prophet reverse death? Can Israel reverse exile? Can bones reassemble themselves?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Can Judah rebuild covenant history by its own strength? Can
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: the dead manufacture breath? Ezekiel answers, O Lord God, thou knowest.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: That may be one of the most mature answers anybody
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: gives God in Scripture. He does not say yes merely
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: because yes sounds spiritual. He does not say no merely
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: because no looks reasonable. He refuses presumption. He refuses despair. Lord,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you know. In other words, if you are asking me
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: what bones can do, the answer is obvious. But if
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you are asking me what you can do with bones,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: then the limits of my observation are no longer enough
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: to answer the question. That is faith, not pretending you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: know outcomes God has not revealed, not baptizing your personal
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: wishes and calling them prophecy. Not denying the diagnosis, not
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: denying the loss, not denying the broken marriage, not denying
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the years, not denying the prodigal child, not denying the grave,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: but refusing to make human limitation the final definition of
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: divine possibility. There is another prophet living through essentially the
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: same national catastrophe who gives us a beautiful parallel. Jeremiah
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: 32 takes place while Jerusalem is under siege. The city
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: is about to fall, yet God tells Jeremiah to purchase
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a field. Imagine buying property while an invading army is
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: occupying the land. It looks absurd. Why does Jeremiah buy it?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Because God is saying there will be a future beyond Babylon.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Then Jeremiah prays in Jeremiah 32.17, Ah, Lord God, behold,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: great power, and there is nothing too hard for thee.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Later God answers with almost the same language, Behold, I
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: anything too hard for me? Jeremiah gets a field during
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: a siege. Ezekiel gets bones after destruction. Two prophets, same crisis,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: same God. The question underneath both is essentially the same.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Has catastrophe created a future God cannot reach? And God's
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: answer is no. Not because catastrophe is imaginary, not because
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: judgment was unreal, not because the people deserved rescue, but
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: because Babylon is not sovereign over God's covenant purposes. Now
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: perhaps you see why God needed the bones to become
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: very dry. If there had been flesh remaining, somebody could
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: credit recovery. If the bodies were merely injured, somebody could
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: imagine rehabilitation. If there were still breath, somebody could call
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: it resuscitation. God chooses an image where every competing explanation
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: is removed. Bones, very many, very dry, scattered, hopeless. And
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: then God asks, can these bones live? The question is
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: not designed to measure the bones. We already know what
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the bones can do. Nothing. The question is designed to
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: reveal the God standing beside them. Father, for the person
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: watching who has been staring at something so long that
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the condition of the situation has become bigger in their
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: mind than the character of God, give us Ezekiel's humility.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Do not let us manufacture promises you never made, but
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: do not let us bury promises you have made simply
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: because circumstances became frightening. Teach us to say, Lord God,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you know. Give us courage to face reality without worshipping reality.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Give us faith that is honest enough to see the
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: bones and humble enough to admit that the bones do
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: not get the final word. Amen. And now we have
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: finally reached the point where most sermons begin. But notice
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: how much had to happen before we could get here.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: The valley is not about positive thinking. The bones are
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: not an undefined symbol for anything you want restored. They
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: represent the whole house of Israel. The dryness represents a
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: people who believe their hope has disappeared. The scattered condition
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: belongs to a covenant history of division, judgment, and exile.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: The valley comes after Jerusalem falls. The vision follows God's
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: promise of cleansing, gathering, a new heart, and a new spirit.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: The priest standing among the bones understands death and impurity.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: The exile standing among them understands displacement. The widower standing
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: among them understands loss. and the prophet standing among them
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: understands that only God knows what comes after devastation. Now
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: God speaks. Ezekiel 37.4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: upon these bones. And this is where another popular misunderstanding
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: is about to collapse, because God does not tell Ezekiel,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Speak whatever future you desire. He tells him exactly what
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to say. O ye dry bones, hear the word of
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: the Lord. The bones are not about to respond to
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel's creative power. They are about to respond to God's word.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: But even that will not be enough to finish the vision,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: because something astonishing is about to happen. The bones will hear.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: The bones will move. Bone will find its bone. Sinews
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: will appear. Flesh will grow. Skin will cover them. An
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: entire valley will look human again. And every body will
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: still be dead. Which means... The greatest question in Ezekiel
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: 37 is about to become even deeper than can these
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: bones live? Now we arrive at the moment almost everybody remembers.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37.4 says, Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: hear the word of the Lord. But after everything we
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: have uncovered, I want you to hear that command differently.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: God is commanding Ezekiel to speak to something incapable of hearing.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: There are no ears in this valley. There are no
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: functioning brains. processing sound. No nervous system is waiting to
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: receive instructions. Ezekiel has been told to preach to skeletal remains.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Humanly speaking, this is absurd, and that is precisely why
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: the wording matters. God does not tell Ezekiel, tell these
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: bones what you would like to happen. He does not say,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: visualize the outcome you desire and declare it until reality changes.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: He tells him to say, hear the word of the Lord.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: The power does not originate in the prophet's vocabulary. The
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: authority belongs to the God whose word Ezekiel has been
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: commanded to repeat. That distinction is absolutely essential if we
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: are going to understand this passage instead of merely borrowing
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: its language. There's a popular way of using Ezekiel 37
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: that turns Ezekiel into a model of autonomous verbal power,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: as though the lesson were that human beings can speak
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: whatever future they desire and force dead situations to obey.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: But read the chapter carefully. Ezekiel never invents the message.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: God gives the command. God supplies the words. Ezekiel obeys.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: The miracle happens because the word belongs to God. Ezekiel's
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: mouth becomes an instrument, not the source. That fits the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: entire biblical theology of God's speech. Genesis 1 does not
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: say creation appeared because Adam declared it. Adam did not
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: even exist yet. God said, Let there be light, and
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: light appeared. Psalm 33.6 says, By the word of the
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Lord were the heavens made. Isaiah 55.11 records, God saying,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: it shall accomplish that which I please. Jeremiah 23.29 asks,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Scripture repeatedly directs our attention away from human verbal technique
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and toward divine speech that accomplishes divine intention. So when
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel says, O ye dry bones, hear the word of
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the Lord, Something much deeper is happening than motivational speaking.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: God's Word is entering a place where no natural capacity
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: remains to respond. And if you are taking notes, hold
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: on to that phrase, because the New Testament will later
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: use remarkably similar language around Jesus. In John 5.25, Jesus says,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: the hour is coming... And now is when the dead
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: they that hear shall live. Think about the biblical pattern.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: In Ezekiel's valley, the impossible audience is told to hear
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the word of the Lord. In John's gospel, Jesus says
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: the dead will hear the voice of the Son of
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: God and live. The point is not that Ezekiel 37
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: was simply predicting that exact sentence. The point is that
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Scripture consistently locates life-giving authority in the divine voice. Here
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: it is, in the same paragraph style, with the wording
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and teaching preserved. Pasted markdown. Then God tells the bones
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: what He Himself is going to do. Ezekiel 37.5 says,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Notice the subject of the verbs, I will cause. Verse
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: 6 continues, And I will lay sinews upon you, and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: and put breath in you. I will, I will, I will,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I will. Again, the valley is not revealing the hidden
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: potential of bones. God is revealing His own agency. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: then comes the purpose statement, and ye shall live, and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: ye shall know that I am the Lord. That final
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: phrase is one of the keys to the entire book
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of Ezekiel. Again and again, God says that through judgment, deliverance, restoration,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and fulfilled prophecy, people shall know that I am the Lord.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel is not primarily interested in giving Israel an inspirational experience.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: God's actions reveal God's identity. So the purpose of the
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: valley is not merely look what God can do for
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: your circumstances. It is look who God is. That may
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: sound like a small difference, but spiritually it is enormous.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: If the ultimate purpose of God was simply to make
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: every circumstance comfortable, then God would become a means to
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: our preferred ending. But Ezekiel keeps putting the Lord himself
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: at the center. Restoration reveals him. Judgment reveals his holiness.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Covenant faithfulness reveals his name. The Spirit reveals his power.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Israel's renewed life is supposed to result in renewed knowledge
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: of God. That means the greatest miracle in the valley
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: is not merely that dead things move. It is that
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: a people who had misunderstood their catastrophe are brought back
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: into the knowledge of the God they thought had abandoned them.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Now verse 7 says, So I prophesied as I was commanded.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Do not rush past those five words, as I was commanded.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel's obedience is exact. He does not edit God's message
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: because the audience cannot hear. He does not say, Lord,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: this method does not make sense. He does not demand
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: to know how bones can respond before obeying. He speaks
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: because God told him to speak. And sometimes obedience to
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: God will look foolish if your only standard is what
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the visible circumstances are presently capable of doing. Noah building
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: an ark before the flood looked unreasonable until rain came.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Abraham leaving his country for a land God would show
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: him looked uncertain. Moses standing in front of Pharaoh looked
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: ridiculous if you measured Moses against Egypt. Joshua walking Israel
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: around Jericho did not resemble conventional siege warfare. Peter stepping
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: out of a boat made no sense if the only
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: fact you considered was that water does not support human weight.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Biblical obedience is not irrational. It is rational response to
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: divine revelation. The crucial question is not merely, does this
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: action make sense according to ordinary circumstances? The question is,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: has God spoken? Ezekiel has heard God, so he speaks.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: And then the valley makes a sound. Verse 7 says,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a shaking. Imagine standing there, for however long Ezekiel has
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: been looking at these bones, the valley has been silent.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Death is quiet. Bones do not speak. Bones do not move.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Then suddenly there is a sound. The Hebrew language here
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: carries the idea of sound or voice and a rattling,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: shaking or commotion. Something is happening throughout the valley. What
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: was still begins to move. And the text says, the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: bones came together. Bone to his bone. Notice the orderliness.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: This is not random chaos. A bone does not simply
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: attach itself to any nearby bone. Bone comes to his bone.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: The scattered structure is being reconstituted. And now remember what
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the bones represent, the whole house of Israel. That means
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the movement of bone toward bone is not merely anatomical imagery.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: It fits the larger promise of God, gathering what has
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: been scattered. Israel has been scattered. Israel has been divided.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: The northern kingdom has fallen. Judah has fallen. Exiles are
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: living outside the land. Families have been displaced. National structures
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: have collapsed. Then, in the vision, what is scattered begins
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: to come together. This is why the second half of
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37 contains the sign of the two sticks. Judah
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: and Joseph, associated with Ephraim, are brought together in God's hand.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: The bones come together, the sticks come together, what human sin,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: political division, Assyrian conquest and Babylonian exile have torn apart,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: God announces his intention to reunite. So when you hear
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the rattling, do not merely hear a dramatic sound effect,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: hear gathering, hear reunification, Hear God reversing scattering. And this
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: connects back again to Ezekiel 36.24. I will take you
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Chapter 36 says, I will gather. Chapter 37 shows bones gathering.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: This is biblical theology being dramatized. Then Ezekiel looks in
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: verse 8 and says, And when I beheld, lo, the
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: skin covered them above. Now what stood before him no
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: longer looks like a valley of bones. There are bodies, muscles, tendons, flesh, skin,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: human structure has been restored. If the vision ended there,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: most people would call it a miracle. But the Holy
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Spirit makes sure Ezekiel tells us the sentence that changes everything.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: But there was no breath in them. Stop there, because
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: this may be the most important moment in the entire vision.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Everything looks right. Nothing is alive. The bodies have structure.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: No breath, they have organization. No breath, they have appearance.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: No breath, they look human. No breath. If you walked
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: into the valley from a distance, you might think restoration
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: had already happened. But God says, in effect, not yet.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: And that distinction is enormous. Reconstruction is not resurrection. Structure
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: is not life. Movement toward wholeness is not the same
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: thing as receiving the Spirit. Now, we have to be
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: careful here. Ezekiel is not necessarily giving us a chronological
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: prediction that Israel would experience one historical stage of external
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: national restoration, and then, years later, a completely separate historical
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: stage of spiritual restoration. The vision is dramatizing the completeness
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: of God's work. But the two-stage imagery teaches something theological
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: that we cannot miss. Forming a body and giving life
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: to that body are not the same divine action in
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the vision. That should make every serious believer think because
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: human beings are very good at reconstruction. We can organize.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: We can build. We can schedule. We can create systems.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: We can repair appearances. We can develop programs. We can
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: restore routines. We can make something look functional. But we
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: cannot manufacture the breath of God. A church can have
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: a beautiful building, trained musicians, excellent lighting, a professional media team,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: an impressive website, full calendars, leadership structures, and thousands of
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: people entering every week. Yet, those things alone cannot create
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: spiritual life. A marriage can avoid divorce and still lack tenderness.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: A family can gather for holidays and still carry years
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: of unresolved bitterness. A person can return to church attendance
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: and still remain internally distant from God. You can read
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: three chapters every morning, listen to sermons in the car,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: know Christian vocabulary, smile when people ask how you are doing,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: and still know privately that something inside you has become
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: spiritually exhausted. That is why the phrase, there was no
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: breath in them, should make us tremble. Something can look
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: alive without possessing life. And God does not confuse the two,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: neither should we. Then verse 9 says, Then said he
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: unto me, Prophesy unto the wind. Now we come to
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: one of the richest linguistic features in the entire chapter.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: The Hebrew word here is ruach. And ruach can mean wind, breath,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: or spirit, depending on context. This is not three unrelated
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Hebrew words that happen to look alike. The same word
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: carries a range of meanings connected with invisible moving air, breath, vitality,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and spirit. That means Ezekiel 37 says, is deliberately playing
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: with an ambiguity English cannot fully reproduce because our translations
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: usually have to decide whether to print breath, wind, or spirit.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Watch what happens. In verse 5, God says he will
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: cause breath to enter the bones. That word is ruach.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Verse 6 says God will put breath in them. Ruach.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Verse 8 says there is no breath in them. Ruach.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Verse 9 commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the wind, ruach.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Then God says, Come from the four winds. The plural
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: form again comes from ruach. Then Ezekiel says, The breath
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: came into them. Again, ruach. Finally, verse 14 interprets the
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: whole thing. And shall put my spirit in you, and
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: ye shall live. My spirit, God says, my ruach. Do
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: you see what the text has been doing? Breath, wind, spirit.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: The same Hebrew word has been moving through the vision.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel is not simply watching CPR on a national scale.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: God is teaching through language itself. What the bodies need
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: is not merely oxygen. They need God's spirit. This is
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: why Ezekiel 37 cannot be separated from Ezekiel 36, 27.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: And I will put my spirit within you. Chapter 36
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: promises the Spirit. Chapter 37 shows Ruach entering bodies. Then
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: chapter 37.14 says explicitly, I shall put my Spirit in you.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: That is the interpretation. And now the vision reaches all
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: the way backward toward creation. Genesis 2.7 says, And the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Notice the sequence. First, Formation. A body is formed from dust.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: and man became a living soul. The Hebrew word translated
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: breath in Genesis 2.7 is not ruach, but neshama. So
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: we should not pretend the vocabulary is identical. But the
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: theological pattern is unmistakably related. Form, then divine breath. then life.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Adam's body is formed, but life comes from God. In
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37, bodies are formed, but they remain lifeless until
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: God gives breath. Creation is being echoed. This is new
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: creation imagery, and Genesis gives us another connection. Genesis 1-2
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: says that the Ruach Elohim The spirit, wind, or breath
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: of God, depending on how one renders the phrase, moves
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: over the face of the waters before God speaks creation
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: into ordered existence. Think about the pattern. In Genesis, spirit
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and divine speech surround creation. In Ezekiel, divine speech and
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: spirit surround recreation. God speaks. God breathes. Life appears. Psalm 33.6
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: almost brings those ideas together in one verse, by the
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Word, breath, creation.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Now Ezekiel stands in a valley and receives word and
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: breath in the context of restoration. This is not accidental
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: biblical poetry. This is a theology of life. Life belongs
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: to God. And notice verse 9 carefully, Come from the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: they may live. These slain, that is another important detail.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: The text now describes the bodies with language associated with
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: people who were killed. That strengthens the battlefield-like atmosphere of
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the vision. These were not merely individuals who peacefully reached
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: old age and died in their beds. The imagery resembles
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: catastrophic defeat. A defeated host is about to become a
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: standing host. God tells the breath to come from the
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: four winds. That does not mean there are four Holy Spirits.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: The four winds are a common way of speaking of
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: the four directions. The totality of the horizon, north, south, east,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and west. The scattered people have been dispersed. The breath
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: comes from every direction. The imagery is comprehensive. Nothing lies
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: outside God's reach. Then verse 10 says, So I prophesied
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: as he commanded me, again as he commanded me. This
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: is the second time Ezekiel emphasizes obedience. The prophet does
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: not innovate, he obeys. And the breath came into them
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: and they lived. Then comes something astonishing, and stood up
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: upon their feet an exceeding great army. Now compare that
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: with where we started. Bones, scattered, dry, very dry, silent, helpless.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Then the word, movement, bodies, still dead. Then the breath, life, standing,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: an army. God has not merely improved the condition of bones.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: He has transformed a field of defeat into a standing multitude.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: And the Hebrew term translated army can carry the idea
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: of an organized force or host. That means the vision
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: has moved from the remains of the defeated to an
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: assembled people standing in strength. Do you see the reversal?
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: What looked like the evidence of Israel's defeat is becomes
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: the picture of God's restoration. Here it is in the
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: same paragraph style, keeping the wording and teaching intact, pasted markdown.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: The valley that looked like Babylon had written the final
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: chapter becomes the place where God demonstrates that Babylon never
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: held authorship over the covenant story. Then, only after Ezekiel
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: has watched everything happen, God explains the vision. Verse 11,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Once again, Scripture interprets Scripture. Then God quotes what Israel
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: has been saying, our bones are dried and our hope
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: is lost. We are cut off for our parts. Notice
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: how accurately the vision mirrors their confession. They say, our
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: bones are dried. Ezekiel sees dry bones. They say, our
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: hope is lost. Ezekiel sees no visible future. They say,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: we are cut off. Ezekiel sees bones separated from one another.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: The valley visualizes Israel's self-understanding. But God refuses to allow
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: their self-diagnosis to become prophecy. That is worth sitting with.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Israel says, our hope is lost. God does not say, yes,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: therefore your story is over. God says, in effect, your
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: diagnosis of your strength is correct. Your conclusion about my
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: future is not. That is an enormous distinction. Sometimes we
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: correctly recognize that we cannot fix something and then incorrectly
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: conclude that therefore God has no future in it. Those
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: are not the same statement. I cannot may be true,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: therefore God cannot does not follow. Our bones are dried
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: may be accurate. Our hope is therefore permanently lost is
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: the conclusion God overturns. Then God changes the imagery again
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: in verse 12. Behold, O my people, I will open
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: your graves and cause you to come up out of
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: your graves. Now pay attention. The bones Ezekiel saw were
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: lying exposed in a valley, but suddenly God speaks about graves.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: If you insist on reading the vision as a literal
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: report of a physical mass grave, the imagery starts becoming
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: awkward because the bones were not described as buried in graves.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: But if you recognize prophetic symbolism— It makes perfect sense.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: The image shifts from battlefield death to burial and resurrection
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: because God is communicating the same theological reality through another picture.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Exile has become Israel's grave, and return will resemble resurrection.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: God says, I will bring you into the land of Israel.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: There is the immediate historical meaning. The opening of graves
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: is resurrection imagery used here to describe national restoration and return.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: This is why we need precision when teaching Ezekiel 37.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Is Ezekiel 37 primarily a prophecy that individual dead Israelites
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: will physically climb out of literal graves at that moment? No.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: God interprets the image in terms of bringing His people
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: back to their land and restoring them as a people.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: But does Ezekiel 37 contribute to the growing biblical language
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: through which resurrection hope will later be expressed? Absolutely. The
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Old Testament increasingly develops explicit resurrection expectation. Isaiah 26.19 says,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Thy dead men shall live. Daniel 12.2 says that many
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Then the New Testament brings bodily resurrection into unmistakable focus
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: through the resurrection of Jesus and the promised resurrection of
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: his people. So Ezekiel 37 sits within a biblical world
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: in which God reveals himself as the one whose power
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: reaches beyond death. even though the immediate symbolic referent in
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: the valley is Israel's national restoration. That distinction matters because
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: deep Bible teaching refuses two errors. We should not flatten
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37 into nothing more than the doctrine of final resurrection,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: and we should not strip its resurrection imagery of theological significance.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Both context and canonical development matter. Then verse 13 says,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: And ye shall know that I am the Lord when
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: I have opened your graves. There it is again. You
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: shall know that I am the Lord. The end is
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: knowledge of God. Then verse 14 delivers the theological climax,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: There can no longer be any question, what the breath
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: ultimately signifies. My spirit. Ezekiel 36.27 I will put my
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: spirit within you. Ezekiel 37.14 I shall put my spirit
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: in you. The valley is not merely about return to geography.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: It is about restored life by the Spirit of God.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Land without spirit would not solve Israel's deepest problem. Remember
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: why exile happened. The fundamental issue was not that Babylon
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: was stronger than Judah. Babylon was an instrument within divine judgment.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: The deeper problem was Israel's covenant unfaithfulness, idolatry, injustice, rebellion,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: and hard-heartedness. So simply transporting bodies back into the land
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: would not solve the problem that drove them out of
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: the land. They need new hearts. They need cleansing. They
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: need God's Spirit. This is why Ezekiel 36 and 37
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: must remain joined. God does not merely change Israel's address.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: He promises transformation. And now another New Testament conversation begins
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: sounding different. In John chapter 3, Jesus speaks with Nicodemus
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: about being born of water and spirit. Nicodemus is a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: master of Israel, a teacher of Israel, yet he struggles
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: to understand. Jesus asks,' Art thou a master of Israel,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and knowest not these things?' Why might a teacher of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Israel have been expected to recognize language about water, cleansing, spirit,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: and new life? Because prophets like Ezekiel had already joined
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: those ideas. Ezekiel 36.25 Then will I sprinkle clean water
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: upon you, and ye shall be clean. Verse 26 A
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: new heart. Verse 27 I will put my spirit within you.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Then chapter 37, the Spirit brings life. And John 3
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: itself contains another fascinating word connection. The Greek word pneuma,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: like Hebrew ruach, can mean wind, breath, or spirit, depending
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: on context. Jesus says, The wind bloweth where it listeth,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: while speaking about birth by the Spirit. The Hebrew scriptures
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: have ruach. The Greek New Testament has pneuma, wind, breath, spirit,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: invisible but known by its effects. Then John 20.22 gives
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: us another remarkable scene. The risen Jesus appears to his disciples,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: breathes on them, and says, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, breath, spirit.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: New creation after resurrection. Again, we should not collapse all
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: these texts as though they are identical events. But Scripture
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: is building a consistent theology. Life that belongs to God
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: is communicated by God's Spirit. Paul says the same thing
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: in Romans 8.11. But if the Spirit of Him that
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: your mortal bodies. The Spirit is not merely emotional energy.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: He is not merely a feeling during worship. He is
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the Spirit. of the God who raises the dead. and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: now the valley of dry bones begins opening toward the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Christian life in a responsible way. Not everything you ever
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: wanted must come back. Not every business failure will reverse.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Not every relationship will end exactly the way you desire
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: if you say the right words. That is not what
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel promises. The true application is deeper. The God revealed
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: in Ezekiel is able to create life where human capacity
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: has ended, and he does so according to his word,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: his covenant purpose, and his spirit. That changes prayer. You
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: no longer need to pretend you are sovereign. You no
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: longer need to force God into promises he never made.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: You no longer need to fear that acknowledging reality means
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: you have no faith. You can say, Lord, this marriage
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: is hurting. Lord, my child is far from you. Lord,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: my body is weak. Lord, I do not know whether
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: this door will ever reopen. Lord, the church looks active,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: but we desperately need your spirit. And then you pray
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: from what God has actually revealed. Give wisdom. Bring repentance.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Create clean hearts. Strengthen us. Lead us. Save. Sanctify. Pour
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: out your spirit. Let your word accomplish your will. That
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: is very different from trying to use Ezekiel's prophetic authority
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: as a technique for controlling outcomes. Ezekiel did not speak
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: because speech is magical. He spoke because God had spoken first.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: And there is a massive difference between declaring your desire
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and agreeing with God's revelation. One puts you at the center.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: The other puts God at the center. That is why
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Jesus himself in his suffering gives us the perfect pattern.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: In Gethsemane he openly expresses desire. If it be possible,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: let this cup pass from me. He does not pretend
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: pain is pleasant, but he continues, Nevertheless not as I will,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: but as thou wilt. That is not weak faith. That
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: is perfect surrender. So when you stand in front of
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: your dry bones, biblical faith does not require you to say,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: I know exactly what God must do. Sometimes the deepest
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: prayer is still Ezekiel's answer, Lord God, thou knowest. And
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: then speak, Lord, tell me what you have promised and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: teach me to stand there. But Ezekiel 37 still has
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: another layer. Many sermons never reach because they stop when
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: the army stands up. Think about that. If the sermon
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: ends at verse 10, the climax becomes a powerful army.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: But God keeps talking. The chapter continues into the two sticks.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Judah and Joseph become one. God promises one nation. Then
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: verse 24 says, David my servant shall be king over them,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: and they all shall have one shepherd. Now the valley
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: is moving toward kingship, toward shepherd imagery, toward messianic expectation.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: God had already promised in Ezekiel 34 that he himself
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: would shepherd Israel and would set up my servant David
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: as shepherd over them. David had been dead for centuries
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: and so Ezekiel is clearly reaching toward a Davidic future,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: a restored rule associated with God's covenant promise. Christians cannot
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: read that without hearing the New Testament. Jesus says in
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: John 10.11, I am the good shepherd. Later he speaks
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: of one fold and one shepherd. Again, we should not
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: erase Ezekiel's original promise to Israel or pretend the historical
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: context disappears, but the canonical trajectory moves toward the Messiah
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: from David's line. Then Ezekiel 37.26 says God will make
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: a covenant of peace. Verse 27 says, My tabernacle also
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: shall be with them. And then this extraordinary sentence, Yea,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Now we finally discover where the valley of dry bones
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: was heading all along, not merely movement, not merely bodies,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: not merely an army, not even merely land, presence, God
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: dwelling with his people. That is the final destination. The
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: valley begins with bones separated from life. The chapter ends
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: with God dwelling among a restored people. And suddenly the
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: whole Bible starts speaking. Sidon begins with God and humanity together.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Sin brings alienation and death. The tabernacle places God's presence
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: among Israel. The temple becomes the dwelling place of His name.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Israel's rebellion leads to exile and the departure of glory
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: in Ezekiel. Then Ezekiel promises restoration and God's sanctuary among
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: His people. John 1.14 says, The Word became flesh and dwelt,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: literally tabernacled among us. 1 Corinthians 3.16 says, God's Spirit
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: dwells in His people. Ephesians 2 describes believers being built
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Revelation 21.3 finally announces, Behold, the tabernacle of God is
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: with men, and He will dwell with them. Do you
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: see what we almost miss if we stop at the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: rattling bones? The deepest biblical goal— the is not that your
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: circumstances improve. The deepest biblical goal is God dwelling with
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: his people. The army is not the climax. God's presence is.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: That changes how you interpret restoration. We often say, God,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: restore this, because I want it back. Ezekiel makes us
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: ask a deeper question. God, if you restore me, what
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: are you restoring me for? The answer is not merely comfort, communion, covenant, holiness, presence,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: knowledge of God. The bones live so that they know
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: He is the Lord. The people are gathered so that
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: He is their God. The Spirit enters them so that
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  Speaker 1: they live before Him. The divided kingdom becomes one under
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: God's shepherd, and God's dwelling is among them. That is
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: far greater than get your dream back. Maybe God restores
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  Speaker 1: something in your life. Praise Him. Maybe He restores it
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  Speaker 1: in a form you never expected. Praise Him. Maybe there
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  Speaker 1: are things He does not return because His redemptive work
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: is carrying you somewhere deeper than recovering the old chapter.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Then your hope cannot be anchored merely in restoration of circumstances.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: It must be anchored in Him, because sometimes God's greatest
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  Speaker 1: work is not bringing you back to the life you
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  Speaker 1: had before the valley. Sometimes it is bringing you into
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  Speaker 1: a life with Him that you could not have understood
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: before you entered the valley. Perhaps that is why the
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: bones never speak. Have you noticed that? The bones do
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  Speaker 1: not negotiate. They do not explain. They do not contribute.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: God speaks. The prophet obeys. The word goes forth. The
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: Spirit comes. Life happens. The people stand. God receives the glory.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: That is grace. And perhaps someone needs to hear that
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: because you have been blaming yourself for not knowing how
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  Speaker 1: to resurrect something. You were never the resurrection. Jesus said
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: in John 11.25, I am the resurrection and the life.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: Not I know a resurrection technique. I am. When Lazarus
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: lies in his tomb, Jesus does not teach Martha to
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  Speaker 1: speak more positively. He redirects her hope toward himself. I
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  Speaker 1: am the resurrection. And then he calls a dead man
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: out of a grave. The God revealed in Ezekiel's valley
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: is not asking you to become God over your impossible situation.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: He is teaching you where life comes from— His Word, His Spirit,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: His power, His faithfulness, His presence. So now return with
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: me to the question that opened this entire teaching. Son
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: of man, can these bones live? At the beginning— The
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: honest answer seemed impossible. By the end of the vision,
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  Speaker 1: we know the answer. Can bones live by themselves? No.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: Can bones manufacture breath? No. Can Israel rescue itself from
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: covenant death? No. Can human organization create spiritual life? No.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Can a prophet generate resurrection through his own words? No.
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  Speaker 1: But can God speak to what cannot hear? Yes. Can
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  Speaker 1: God gather what has been scattered? Yes. Can God form
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: what has been destroyed? Yes. Can God send His Spirit
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: where there was no life? Yes. Can God restore a
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: people who believe their story is over? Yes. Can God
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: remain faithful when circumstances look like the complete collapse of
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  Speaker 1: His promises? Yes. That is Ezekiel 37. Here it is
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: in the same paragraph style, but I also tightened the
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: repeated explanations and applications so the ending lands harder without
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: saying the same truth too many times. And now we
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: can answer the questions we began with, without confusion. Was
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: the Valley of Dry Bones a real, physical place we
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: can identify today?' Ezekiel presents the scene as a spirit-given
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: prophetic vision, and Scripture never gives us a geographical location
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: to visit. Where did the bones come from? Within the vision,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: they belong to a battlefield-like scene of death and defeat.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: But God tells us their symbolic identity plainly. These bones
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: are the whole house of Israel. Why were they very dry?
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: because the vision emphasizes prolonged, irreversible death from the human
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: point of view, matching Israel's confession that their hope was
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: lost and they were cut off. Why does God ask,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: can these bones live? Not because God lacks information, but
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: because Ezekiel is being brought to the boundary between human
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: impossibility and divine sovereignty. Why does Ezekiel prophesy to the bones?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Because God commands him to deliver the word of the Lord,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: not because Ezekiel possesses independent creative power. Why do bodies
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: form before they live? Because restored structure is not the
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: same thing as life. The breath still has to come.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: And why is breath so important? Because Ruach moves through
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: the passage as breath, wind, and finally God's own spirit.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: Life does not originate in the bones, the prophet, or
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: the structure. Life comes from God. What does the vision
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: mean historically? God is promising restoration to the covenant people
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: who experienced exile as national death. And what does it
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: mean within the whole Bible? It participates in Scripture's great
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: movement from creation to new creation, from death to life,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: from exile to restoration, from human inability to divine spirit,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: ultimately opening toward resurrection and God's dwelling with His people.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: And what does it mean for you? It means you
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: do not have to lie about your valley. You can
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: look at the bones and admit they are dry. You
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: can admit you do not know what happens next. You
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: can stop trying to become sovereign over outcomes, stop confusing
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: activity with life, and stop turning every personal desire into
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: a divine promise. Instead, you can place your hope where
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel was being taught to place his, not in the bones,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: not in the prophet, not in the circumstances, but in
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: the God who speaks and performs what he has spoken.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 37.14 ends with these words, I the Lord have
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord. Spoken, performed.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: That is the final contrast. Israel says, Our hope is lost.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: God says, I have spoken. Israel says, we are cut off.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: God says, I will put my spirit in you. Israel
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: sees bones. God sees a people standing. Israel sees Babylon.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: God sees covenant restoration. Israel sees an ending. God knows
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: what comes after the ending. Father, I pray for the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: person listening who walked into this teaching carrying a valley
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: in their heart. Some are carrying a child they cannot reach.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: Some are carrying grief that has followed them for years.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: Some are carrying marriages that need your mercy. Some are
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: carrying churches that look active but desperately need your Spirit.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: Some are carrying private spiritual exhaustion Nobody else can see.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Give them something deeper than excitement. Give them truth. Teach
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: them not to manufacture promises you never gave, but never
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: to surrender promises you have given merely because circumstances look impossible.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Where there is sin, bring repentance. Where there is bitterness,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: bring forgiveness. Where there is confusion, bring wisdom. Where there
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: is spiritual deadness, breathe by your Spirit. Where there is grief,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: be near. And above everything else, make us a people
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: who desire your presence more than the restoration of any
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: temporary thing. Let the deepest prayer of our lives not
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: merely be, Lord, give me my old life back, but, Lord,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: make me alive to you. Because now we finally understand
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: the valley. The mystery was never simply whether bones could move.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: The deeper question was where life comes from. And the
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: answer has been standing over the valley from the beginning.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Life comes from God. And before you leave, if this
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: teaching helped you see Ezekiel in a deeper way and
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: you want to keep studying, we have the book of
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel available in e-book format for you. The link is
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: in the description. And it is designed to help you
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: move through the book with greater clarity, historical context, and
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: a stronger understanding of what God was revealing through these visions.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: If you want to go even deeper through the rest
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: of Scripture, we also have more than 250 Bible video
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: lessons in our store covering books of the Bible in
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a way that helps you connect the Old Testament, the Prophets,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: the Gospels, and the New Testament together. If you have
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: been looking for one place to study the Bible book
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: by book and chapter by chapter, you can join us
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: through the link below. And if this message encouraged you,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: share it with someone who may be standing in their
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: own valley right now, subscribe to Deep Bible Stories, and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: keep going deeper in the Word. Stay blessed. And may
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: God continue to open the Scriptures to you in a
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: way that strengthens your faith and draws you closer to Him.