God's Word Makes Alive - Ezekiel 37:1-14
Posted on December 1, 2013 by Unknown
The most bloodiest and deadliest event on US soil was not 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, but 150 years ago, it was the battle of Gettysburg. There, tens of thousands died, men, horses; all dead, sprawled across the landscape. What is the purpose in this? Is was to this battle that Lincoln called and declared it to be the moment when the country was given a chance to be born again to have new life. This is the message of the Gettysburg address.
Death by all evidence appears to us a permanent thing. How can we come out of death? Ezekiel in our passage today sees the same scene: a great battle field, with bodies everywhere. What hope is there? But God's is the one who raises up. And here we see that declared.
So begins this series of sermons. We will consider together that truth that God's Word makes us alive. How does this happen? Let us look today in Ezekiel 37.
**Three Observations from our Passage**
**1. Apart from God's lie, we are spiritually dead.**
The stench of death permeates this passage. God transports Ezekiel straight into a great battlefield, with innumerable soldiers. The flesh though is gone. Exposed to the elements all these bones are all dried and bleached in the sun. There is nothing living left in them at all. The effects of death has fully set in.
This is something that Ezekiel was familiar with personally. For the Babylonian empire had utterly destroyed his own homeland in a similar fashion. In response to their idolatry, God in 586 B.C. judged Israel and using the Babylonian army's destroyed them completely. At this time they were truly dry bones.
We are the same. We died in Adam, the same as them. We are also judged, and likewise death. One out of one die. There is no avoiding it. Apart from a life in God we are spiritually dead, and physically dead in our time. There is no other path without Jesus.
>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.' (Ezekiel 37:11, ESV)
But there is hope. God says to the prophet, prophecy that the sinews and flesh cover these bones.
>And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
**2. God gives us life through his Word and through his Spirit.**
But that was not enough. The bodily form restored still had no life. It was through the word, the wind, the Holy Spirit that life came into the bones, those sinew, that flesh. With the Spirit we are made alive.
>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.
God speaks. Things happen. Our word, our voice is empty and means nothing. But God speaks and life is born. How awesome is this. And the Spirit having taken residence in us, through us also life may be brought. "Talitha cumi" Stand up! Rise up! The spiritually dead are raised to life because in us dwells the Spirit who gives life. Let us never let our own voices rise up and contend with God's Spirit, to try and quench that within us that God has made. This is what the church is to be about. Letting the voice of Spirit rise up in us. Consider the day of Pentecost. The Spirit came down, the word was preached, and three thousand were brought to new life in Jesus. The mission of the church is to declare the Word of God, so that people everywhere may come to life.
**3. God give us life so that we might know him.**
One may ask, why all this new life, why all this raising of the dead. Let the dead be dead some may say. But there is a purpose. We are brought to new life, that we may know that God is the Lord, the creator of the universe and its savior as well.
>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 37:14, ESV)
What does it mean to "know" God? It is to know intimately the attributes, character, activity and will of God. It is to walk with him daily, in the same way that Jesus had with the Father. We are promised this same relationship. The same relationship the Son with the Father. This isn't just for heaven, but for now. Jesus lived on earth, and we are able in him to have the same relationship he had with the Father on earth that he had. All of this that we may know that, "I am the Lord". So says Yahweh, Jehovah, Our Father forevermore. Amen.
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