KNOWING GOD IN HIS GLORY
The
Ezekiel 37
Jerry A Collins
SCC
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What is the identity of the dry bones?
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Why is
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What does God promise to do for the nation of
Every cemetery has a testimony. Reviewing the grave markers there is a
name, date and sometimes a verse or saying that identifies the person and gives
some idea of who they were or what they believed. I have often walked through
cemeteries and the one thot that strikes me is that
it is so final. These people once lived real lives, but now it is over. For
1. CIRCUMSTANCES SAY IT IS HOPELESS AND THEY ARE HELPLESS 1-4
Most Israelites may have doubted God’s promise to restore them again.
Their present condition militated against that possibility. God brot Ezekiel to
a valley and set him in the middle of it full of bones all around. The bones
were numerous and very dry. They were there for so long that they had
become bleached and baked under the hot sun in that valley. This emphasizes the
impossibility of these bones ever having life again. It is absolutely hopeless
and these who had once been alive helpless to live again. The description makes
it clear that life is gone, never to return.
In vs 3 God asks
the prophet a
remarkable question. Son of man can these dry
bones live? Was there potential for life to return to these lifeless bones
again? The point of the question is to have Ezekiel affirm the impossibility of
these bones living again. Ezekiel knew that humanly speaking it was impossible.
He affirms that when he says, O Lord God you know. He admits that only
God can accomplish such a feat. This seems to be the key verse here.
Circumstantially it is impossible for these bones to live.
2. YOU DETERMINE WHAT GOD IS DOING BY LOOKING AT HIS WORD 4-10
The content of this message was God’s promised restoration of His
people. God is not promising to resurrect the people who have died in the land
but to restore their descendents in the future in that land. A resurrection
never happens in stages. These blanched bones will be given life again by
God vs 5. These dead bones will gradually come back
to life. They will receive sinew, flesh and skin 6-9. Then come to life and
stand on their feet in vast numbers vs 10. The bones
coming together, the flesh developing on them, the skin covering them, the
breath entering them and then standing up on their feet indicates the progress
in stages of Gods restoration of His people as a nation in the physical land of
their ancestry. It is to this word that they should
look to and trust
in not present circumstances.