SPEAK TO THE BONES

Imagine how Ezekiel felt when he gazed on a scene of utter desolation; thousands of human bones, bleached white in the sun, lying scattered across a valley of desert sand. Could anything be more dead? His own nation was as dead and unproductive as a boneyard, as rotten with sin and rebellion as a decaying, stinking corpse.

God speaks softly to him, “Ezekiel, what do you think? Can these bones live?” Ezekiel thinks for a moment. Of course, in the natural, his mind can only answer, No! But he is not dealing with “natural”! He’s in conversation with GOD.

“Only you know, God” he replies. “Good answer, Ezekiel,” God commends him. “Now, this is what you must do. Speak to the bones.”

“What! What good will that do? These are dry, dead bones. I’ll look like a fool, lost it, speaking to bones!”

“Just do it Ezekiel.” So Ezekiel just did it. He spoke to the bones,

“‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

Ezekiel 37:4-6 NLT

Ezekiel was shocked, gob-smacked, when the bones did exactly what he commanded them to do. With an ear-splitting noise of rattling and clattering, the bones began to reassemble into an army of human bodies, clothed in flesh and skin but still dead… just as lifeless as they had been, scattered bones on the desert floor.

Again God spoke. “Speak to the breath.” Emboldened by the bones’ response to his instruction, Ezekiel responded, “What must I say?”

“Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”

Ezekiel 37:9 NLT

So Ezekiel spoke to the winds… the mighty, divine force, energy, power, Person, who gives life to all. As he spoke, breath entered the bodies lying in the dust, and they stood up, breathing and alive, a vast army of people ready to do battle.

We are all confronted with our “valleys of dry bones” – relationships, businesses, finances, families, health… as dry and dead as the bones in Ezekiel’s vision. In our grief and despair, God asks us, “Can these bones live?”

Ezekiel’s vision, and God’s astonishing response,  reassure us that there is nothing beyond God’s power to undo. Our circumstances, whatever they are, may seem too far gone to save. Yet, there is always hope.

What is God’s answer to His own question, “Can these bones live?”

1. Speak to the bones. Address the situation from God’s perspective. Ask God for the word you must speak, then speak it with boldness and confidence.

2. Speak to the breath. God’s Spirit, His breath of life, will enter death, as He did the body of Jesus, to bring back life into that which is “dead” to you.

3. Watch and wait with expectancy to see what God can do. Dry bones are never God’s last word.