The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”—Ezekiel 37:1–14

Introduction

This week is the fourth installment in a nine week sermon series entitled: Fill These Cities: 25 x ’25. It has been so wonderful to meet so many new people the last few weeks here at Bethlehem. Many of you that are new among us have expressed a sense of excitement to be part of something that feels bigger than any of us as individuals.

The simplest way to summarize “25 x ’25” may be to ask everyone to remember four aims we have in the next 10 years: (1) strengthen the core of church life on each of our three campuses, (2) build a permanent facility for the South campus that will enable the full-time flourishing of our priorities there, (3) plant 25 new churches, (4) engage 25 unengaged people groups.

If you are hearing all of this for the first time, the most helpful thing for you will be to go online and listen to the first sermon in this series. It summarized the last five years in terms of what God has been doing at Bethlehem to prepare us now for these next 10 years. That first sermon of the series set the tone for the rest of the series by saying, “If he calls us to follow him, we must keep our eyes on him.” This initiative is a fight for sight—we must not only fix our eyes on him, but feast our eyes on his greatness.

Therefore, for three weeks now we have declared that the mission of this church is to be an observatory to see the “out of this world, off the charts, immeasurable greatness of our God.” Imagine this church as an observatory and imagine this pulpit as one of our telescopes (like the 15-foot radio telescope at the Kitt National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona). We say to these cities and to our own souls right now, “Fix your eyes and feast your eyes on the greatness of God the Father (Isaiah 40), God the Son (Colossians 1), and God the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 37).

Outline

Ezekiel 37 is prophetic vision of the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. The vision itself is symmetrically and beautifully constructed.

A Ezekiel is inspired by the Spirit (rûaḥ) and relocated (wayĕnîḥēnî) to Death Valley (1–2)

B Prophesy over the dead bones and they are revived (3–10)

C Vision interpreted and explanation anticipated (11a)

C1 Explanation is anticipated and tied to preceding vision (11b)

B1 Israel represents the dry bones and they will be revived (12–13)

A1 Israel is revived by the Spirit (rûaḥ) and relocated (wĕhinnaḥtî) to homeland (14)

Perhaps two points would provide the simplest outline to aid us in walking through the text:

1. Vision (1–10)

2. Interpretation (11–14)

Main Point

Bethlehem, come to grips with the greatness of God the Holy Spirit—or in the language of our text. Look to the life-giving, dry-bones-resurrecting, new creation power of the Holy Spirit.

II. Body: Vision and Interpretation

1. The Vision (vv. 1–10)

The first movement of the vision is the way the Spirit comes upon Ezekiel and takes him to the place for the vision (vv. 1–2):

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.

The vision quickly comes to focus on how the valley is full of bones. Notice three things about these bones: (1) there were very many, (2) they were not properly buried, and (3) they were very dry. We can take the first two together. First, this valley is the place of great slaughter. The loss of life was staggering—many people died. We find out later that these bones represent the people of Israel. It is like the slaughter, the genocide, the death of an entire nation.

Second, these people were not given a proper burial. These bones are scattered throughout the surface of the valley. It was very important for Israelites who believed in the resurrection of the dead to bury people properly. In fact, many times Jewish culture would have two stages in the burial process. People had a family tomb and the family member would be laid in the tomb until the body completely decomposed so that there was nothing left but the bones. Then the bones would be put into an ossuary—a bone box. Sometimes the bones of an entire family could be put in the bone box with the thought that at the resurrection the whole family would rise together.

Third, notice that these bones are very dry. These are bones, not corpses. There is no flesh, no blood. Just bones. And the bones don’t have any marrow or any life in them—they are dry bones. There is no life anywhere in these bones. They are pure, unadulterated death. You couldn’t get anymore dead than dry bones. These were not corpses, not even just bones, or even dry bones, but “very dry bones” (v. 2).

In the second movement of the vision, Ezekiel is given the prophetic word of the Lord to speak over the dry bones (vv. 3–6).

And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”

Take note of the question and the answers in these verses. First, the question is “Can these bones live?” It is not even a question of whether or not they will live (i.e., Does God want them to live?). Not will they—could they? It is very much like the question of Isaiah 40 we looked at—not just will God save, but can God save? It is an ability question. Is this even possible?

Second, notice Ezekiel’s answer and God’s answer. There is no presumption here on the part of Ezekiel. He simply says, “God knows.” You are the teacher; I am the student. “O Lord GOD, you know” (v. 3). We are going to discover that God not only knows the answer; God is the answer.

He answers the ability question (can he?), the how question (how will he?), and the why question (why will he?). Can he? Yes! God can make them live and will make them live (two times for the sake of emphasis): “you shall live” (v. 5), “you shall live” (v. 6).

How will God make the dry bones live? By the word of the Lord and the breath of the Lord. Why will God make these dry bones live? What purpose is he pursuing—what is the point? He will do it for the sake of his name: “And you shall know that I am the LORD” (v. 6). He works to make the worth of his name known. God’s personal name reveals his worth, fame, reputation, honor, and glory.

In the third movement of the vision (vv. 7–10), Ezekiel speaks the word and then God’s word does its work.

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Pay special attention to the relationship between “breath” and “life.” The most that the bones can hope for without this breath is becoming corpses again—freshly dead, but not alive. Breathe on them or there will be no life in them.

Now we turn the corner into the interpretation. You all just heard God’s answer in terms of whether or not the dry bones could live. There is a problem—God’s people don’t believe what God just said. Look at point two: The interpretation.

2. The Interpretation (vv. 11–14)

Look at verse 11:

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’”

The bones = the people of Israel (v. 11). These bones talk back to God (what an image!) = we are dried up, our hope is lost, we are cut off (v. 11). Do you hear the complaint?! Don’t you see us—we are dry, dead, cut off from life and hope. God is going to say, “I see you. Your problem is that you know you, but you don’t know me.”

They have seen his killing power in judgment as the Holy One. Have you ever wondered why are all of these bones lying there slain? Who killed them and why were they not buried properly? Since we learn later that these bones represent the people of Israel, when you look throughout the rest of Ezekiel, Chapter 6:1–7 is a hauntingly close parallel:

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, and say … Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your idols. And I will lay the dead bodies of the people of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. Wherever you dwell, the cities shall be waste and the high places ruined, so that your altars will be waste and ruined, your idols broken and destroyed, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out. And the slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the LORD.

They have known the Lord’s power to kill, but now they will know his power to make alive. We are about to read some of the most amazing verses—so precious, so powerful. I don’t want you to miss this moment—I want you to be primed to prize these words. So I am going to let C.H. Spurgeon teach you to glory in great promises like the verses you are about to hear (from “Two ‘I Wills’ in Isaiah 41,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon #2270, preached March 16, 1890):

How greatly I prize a portion of Scripture which is filled with God’s shalls and wills. Every thing he says is precious, but His, “I wills,” are peculiarly precious … When we come to the “I wills” of God, then we get among the precious things, the deep things, the things which minister comfort and strength to the people of God! 

Ready yet? Let’s read verses 12–14:

Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”

Do you see the pattern of “I will” followed by “and you shall”? It is the pattern of the power of the Creator: And God said, “Let there be ____” “and there was _____.” You don’t know me truly yet until you see that nothing is too dead for me. Then God’s people will truly know God and his glorious power and love. Not until they have failed—not until they have no hope of securing it themselves—then God moves so that they will give the glory to him.

The context here is incredibly important. Ezekiel 37 is a vivid visual illustration of the Spirit’s work in the new covenant from the previous chapter (Ezekiel 36). Notice once again the “I will” followed by “you shall.”

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.—Ezekiel 36:26–28

“I will put my Spirit within you” (37:14) is an exact repetition of the same phrase in Ezekiel 36:27. The phrase “and I will place you in your own land” (37:14) is also a paraphrase of “and you will live in the land” (36:28). The new covenant is a spiritual resurrection effected by power of the Holy Spirit. The new covenant brings about a new creation. Someone could raise a question at this point. Does this passage refer to spiritual resurrection (new birth, conversion, heart change, moving from spiritual death to spiritual life) or physical resurrection? Does it refer to the resurrection of dead spirits or dead bodies? The answer is “yes.” Here is what I mean—here is how the two resurrections relate: The people who are spiritually raised in the new covenant are the very people who will all be physically raised on the last day.

This explains what we saw in Colossians 1:15–20 last week. The blood of Christ redeems a people for God and reconciles them to God. His resurrection guarantees their resurrection. But his work doesn’t just redeem, reconcile, and produce a future resurrection—where will our resurrection bodies live? Christ is a cosmic reconciler—he effects a reconciliation of heaven and earth—a new creation where resurrected Christians will forever be with our resurrected Lord.

III. Application

1. See What Israel Saw (See and Lament Your Spiritual Deadness)

You may not be a follower of Christ here today. Perhaps you are just checking Christianity out. All of this stuff may sound pretty ridiculous to you. You could say, “You’re crazy—look I am alive! I can slap myself and I feel it.” I am not questioning the physical life of any of you. But some of you are spiritually dead. I will prove it to you. Try to love God. Try to taste the sweetness of Christ and give him first place in your hearts. You can’t do it. There is no light switch in your reach. You can’t make yourself alive. You are alive to many other things right now, but not Christ. That is what it means to be spiritually dead—you are alive to everything but Christ. You are blind to his beauty. Your heart belongs to a bunch of other stuff.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.—Ephesians 2:1–3

It is a miracle to reach that point where you realize you are spiritually dead. Many people are blind to the fact that they are blind. They are dead to the fact that they are spiritually dead.

Do you see? The best humanity can do is to become its own mortician (make dead people look better). God does not have the power of a mortician, but of the resurrection (makes dead people come alive). The gospel is not about bad people becoming better, but dead people coming alive by the Spirit.

2. See and Savor What God Can Do (by His Spirit)

So hear the hope. You may look at your life and see nothing but darkness and despair. I don’t care how dead you feel or how lost you think you are or how far away you have wandered from God. Here is the hope of this text. There is no such thing in God’s dictionary as “too dead.” Hear that. Believe it: “Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast-bound in sin and nature’s night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke! The dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off! My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee” (from “And Can It Be? by Charles Wesley).

We sing it because we have seen it in Ephesians 2:4–6 …

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, if you are not a follower of Christ and not alive to Christ, I am not calling you to try harder and do better. I am asking you to cry out to him—ask him to do the miracle of the “but God” moment. 

If you are a Christian, I call you to see yourself as a miracle. Some of you don’t even like yourselves. You call yourself mean-spirited things in your head that you would never call someone else. Don’t look down on yourself and on what God has done to save you. I heard Kempton Turner once say that some people think they have a boring testimony. It is not true. Being raised from the dead is not boring! I don’t care if you were addicted to self-injecting drugs or addicted to self-righteous deeds—if you are saved, you are a miracle.

3. Alignment: This Passage and the Purpose of Fill These Cities 

Why do we want to “Fill These Cities?” Of course we are moved by human need and deadness in our families and in our cities and in the cities of the world, but my prayer is that we would be able to say that nothing moves us more than a profoundly powerful, God-given concern for the fame of God’s own name among all the peoples of the world—here and everywhere! We want to see God move in power not so that we are known, Instead, God, move in power according to your purpose: “Then they will know that I am the LORD.” We don’t want him to work so that we can say, “Behold, we are Bethlehem.” We say to the world, “Behold your God!”

What if God came to you and asked you, “Can a building be built for the South Campus?” “Can $38 million be raised in 25 months?” “Can 25 unengaged peoples be engaged, and can 25 churches be planted in 10 years?” I would say, “You know, Lord.” 

We know two things: We can’t and He can. The God who can hold 332.5 million cubic miles of water in the hollow of his hands and hold the universe and its billion trillions of burning stars together—$38 million doesn’t sound big to him. Yes, he can—gloriously easily—he can.

4. The Spirit and the First Place (Alignment of this week and last week on Colossians 1)

Let us double click here on the unique role of the Holy Spirit. Last week we said it was the Father’s plan for Christ to have first place in everything. How does that happen in the hearts of spiritually dead people?

John 16:14 says, the Spirit will take the things of Christ and declare them. In so doing, Jesus says that the Spirit “will glorify me.” The Spirit has been called the shy member of the Trinity because the Spirit does not draw attention to himself, but to Christ. The Spirit shines the floodlight upon Christ. I love how J.I. Packer makes this point (from Keep in Step With the Spirit, 1984, p. 66):

I remember walking to a church one winter evening to preach on the words, “He shall glorify Me,” seeing the building floodlit as I turned a corner, and realizing that this was exactly the illustration my message needed. When floodlighting is well done, the floodlights are so placed that you do not see them; you are not in fact supposed to see where the light is coming from; what you are meant to see is just the building on which the floodlights are trained. The intended effect is to make it visible when otherwise it would not be seen for the darkness, and to maximize its dignity by throwing all its details into relief so that you can see it properly. This perfectly illustrates the Spirit’s new covenant role. He is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Savior. Or think of it this way. It is as if the Spirit stands behind us, throwing light over our shoulder, onto Jesus, who stands facing us. The Spirit’s message to us is never, "Look at Me; listen to Me; come to Me; get to know Me,” but always, “Look at Him, and see His glory; listen to Him, and hear His word; go to Him, and have His life; get to know Him, and taste His gift of joy and peace.” 

It is the power of the Spirit that causes Christ to have first place in your heart. The Spirit is the Spirit of life (2 Corinthians 3:6). That is true here in the Twin Cities or in any city among any unreached or unengaged people group—25 unengaged peoples? He can work in the hearts of his people here to engage them, but don’t stop there. He cannot only engage them, but save them. The power of the Spirit can cause life—so that they come alive to Christ; so that he has first place. We go because we want Christ to have first place among them and because no one is too dead for that to happen.

IV. Conclusion: The New Covenant and the Lord’s Supper

On the night that Jesus was betrayed—the night before he died, he lifted up the cup at the last supper and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). There is glory here. Do you see it? The new covenant purchased the promises of the new covenant. They are blood bought promises. No cross—no new covenant.

Let’s come to grips with what that means as we celebrate communion. Last week we worshipped over the fact that all things in creation hold together in Jesus. He is keeping your protons from decaying into neutrons. But he is not simply preserving your physical life, he is preserving your spiritual life. The new covenant purchases your perseverance. Listen to the new covenant promise Jesus purchased for you from Jeremiah 32:39–41. Listen to the glorious “I will” followed by “you shall” that he bought:

I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.  I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Some of you think that God either tolerates you or is a little bit ambivalent to you. O them? ehh (shrug shoulders). What! Show me a verse anywhere that says God is half-hearted toward his people (his children)! Listen to what God actually says: All his heart. All his soul. Have you ever someone do something with every ounce of passion and emotion they could muster? No one ever looks at it and says, “I wonder if his heart is in it?” Imagine what someone could do with an infinite, unlimited heart and unlimited soul. All of it! You might feel like it would take a miracle for you to make it all the way to glory. You are right. It will be a miracle—a miracle God promised to do and Christ purchased for you.

You might say to God, “But don’t you see me—don’t you see my sin?” God says, “don’t you see me? Don’t you see my Son?” You know your sin—do you know your Savior. If you could lose your salvation, you would. Do you think God loses any of his children? You won’t make it because of your great love, but His great love. When you are planted in the new heavens and new earth, it will not be because of what you did with all your fickle heart and soul—our love is often cold—he will hold you fast with all of his heart and soul.

 

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline

A simple outline that will help us as we walk through the text:

1. Vision (vv. 1–10)
2. Interpretation (vv. 11–14)

Main Point: Bethlehem, come to grips with the greatness of God the Holy Spirit. Or in the language of our text: Look to the life-giving, dry-bones-resurrecting, new-creation power of the Holy Spirit.

Ezekiel 37 is prophetic vision of the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. The vision itself is symmetrically and beautifully constructed:

   A) Ezekiel is inspired by the Spirit (rûaḥ) and relocated (wayĕnîḥēnî) 

        to Death Valley (vv. 1–2)

      B) Prophesy over the dead bones and they are revived (vv. 3–10)

          C) Vision interpreted and explanation anticipated (v. 11a)

          C1) Explanation is anticipated with preceding vision (v. 11b)

      B1) Israel represents the dry bones and they will be revived (vv. 12–13)

   A1) Israel is revived by the Spirit (rûaḥ) and relocated (wĕhinnaḥtî) to 

          homeland (v. 14)

Discussion Questions

• How does the vision of Ezekiel 37 highlight the greatness of God the Holy Spirit?
• Dive into some of the details of the passage. Why does the passage stress that the bones are “very dry” (v. 2)? Why were the bones on the surface of the valley and not given a proper burial (v. 2; Ezekiel 6:1–10)? How does God make the bones come alive (v. 4–5)? Why does God make the bones come alive (v. 6)? What is the significance of all the “I shall,” then “you shall” language (vv. 12–14)? What is the relationship between Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 37?

Application Questions

• As a result of hearing this sermon, what is the first change you need to make in your life? Are there further long-range changes or adjustments you need to make?
• Share your conversion story with your small group. What role does the Bible say that the Spirit played in your conversion? Have you ever been tempted to think that you have a boring testimony?
• The Spirit is the Spirit of Life. What part of your heart or area of your life feels dry or dead? Ask Christ to have first place there by the power of the Spirit!

Prayer Focus

Pray for a grace to be alive to Jesus by the life-giving power of the Spirit to the glory of God the Father.