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Ezekiel 37:1-14 - The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. ² Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed, they were very dry. ³ And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So, I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” ⁴ Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! ⁵ Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. ⁶ I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”’” ⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. ⁹ Also 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.” ’ ” ¹⁰ So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. ¹¹ Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. ¹⁴ I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’”

~ The Church doesn’t need bigger programs. We need the breath of God.

This is one of the messages I remember most from my Childhood.  I can see my Pastor – Robert Owen standing there talking about the Valley of the Dry bones. I can still hear him today in His Welsh accent saying – Son of man can these Dry Bones live? Prophecy to the bones – Oh Dry Bones hear the word of the Lord – surly I will cause breath to come into you and you SHALL live!

This portion of scripture is a profound prophecy. It speaks of the rise of Israel as a nation coming out of captivity in Babylon. In AD 70 Israel was scattered again throughout the world and again God raised this nation back within the borders established in the Bible in 1948. This has not happened to any nation or peoples except the Jewish people and the nation state of Israel.

• I want to speak to the fact that there is a rise in antisemitism in the world today. Many people including Christians are rising up to speak against Israel. They are trying to differentiate between the Jewish people and the government.
• God says that we are to bless the people and the nation of Israel. He said that He will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. We are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

• Israel is still the center piece of Biblical and World History and the center of end times prophecy.

• You can bless Israel and still not agree with everything that they are doing. Obviously, the Old Testament is filled with God’s judgement on Israel and with wicked kings and governments of both Israel and Judah.  – We can speak to their sin and proclaim the Salvation that comes through Jesus the Messiah. May we never find ourselves aligning with the enemies of Israel.

 This prophetic vision is also a foreshadowing of the Salvation that Jesus Christ would bring to all of mankind.

Ephesians 2:4-5 - But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

The valley of dry bones is a prophecy concerning our spiritual resurrection.

It is the promise that God would breathe new life into us.

John 11:25 - Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.

The Dry Bones are all about hope.

Those were the bones of people who were dead. They were not sort of dead, they were not mostly dead they were dead, dead.

Hope is a powerful word. If you don’t believe it, just try to live without it.

As Christians we are hopeful and hope-filled people.

The Bible tells us that Jesus is the Hope of the World. – He is.

• I want to remind you that as long as Jesus lives – there is always hope.
• We are not just to be known as Spirit filled people but we are HOPE-Filled people.

~ Hope is a very personal thing.

Each of those skeletons was a person. They had families, dreams, plans and a life.  Each of them had fresh life breathed into them. – That is as personal as it gets.

I want to remind you that the spiritual things of God will have deep personal significance to each of us.

• There is hope in everything when we put our hope in Jesus. He is the Hope of Salvation, the hope of our provision, He is the hope of our healing, the hope of our forgiveness our restoration and our entire life.

• Some of us are in situations so dead, so difficult that you don’t see any life or good or any hope.

God asked Ezekiel – Can these bones live? Remember, Ezekiel said that the bones were very dry. They were long dead. Bleached white in the sun.

Being the deeply prophetic and spiritual man that he was Ezekiel said, “Lord only you know the answer to that”.

All of us at one point or another in our walk with God are going to have to answer questions that the Lord asks us.

Now, we can be religious or we can be honest.

All of us are going to face things that are deader than dead and that is when we are going to have to really deal with what we truly believe about God.

This is the entire reason Jesus waited four days to raise up Lazarus from the dead. According to Jewish law and the law of decay- he was dead enough to start decomposing. That did not stop Jesus from calling out – Lazarus come forth out of that tomb. – This is why the disciples had to be the ones to roll away the stone and not Jesus. They had to get involved in the learning.

They didn’t have enough faith to call out the dead but they did have the faith to obey a simple command.

• If God can raise up an entire nation and put them back together and place them back in their land that He had promised to Abraham thousands of years ago – There is hope.

~ The Valley of the Dry bones gives us practical instruction on dealing with the dead things in our lives.

 Before God will breathe life into our situations, He must first breathe life into us.

He does that by speaking life into us. Before you and I can prophesy and speak life into people and situations God must breathe life into us.

How does He do that? By His Word. The dead things in our life have a way of taking the life out of us.  We lose our enthusiasm, inspiration, and vision.

Anyone who is successful in any endeavor cannot continue effectively if they have no heart for it.

•  The Word enthusiasm means “in God”. – To be “in God” His Word must be in us.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 - All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, ¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Word inspired means God Breathed. Whenever the breath of God is mentioned in the Bible life quickly follows.

It is God’s Word that literally breathes new life into us.

In Genesis God literally breathed life into mankind. He gave breath to Adam.

Genisis 2:7 - And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Man became a living being. This is more than God causing a body to have oxygen.

God literally breathed the Spirit into man. We are body, soul and spirit. We don’t simply live because we can breathe. We breath because we have life.

Acts 17:28 (AMP) - For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’

In the beginning God gave us our spirit.

• But on the day of Pentecost God took this a step further He gave us His Spirit.

Remember Jesus gave this promise to His disciples.

John 20:19-23 - Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Church, we need Jesus to breathe the New Life of the Holy Spirit into us.

This is the difference maker.

• This experience is different from when the disciples received the Power of the Holy Spirit. 

Before the Power there must first be breath.  To feel the breath, one must be close.

People say that the church of America is dead. I don’t believe that because the church is made of people who are alive.

What we need is the Breath of the Holy Spirit. If our nation is going to have a revival it will begin with the Breath of the Holy Spirit in the Church. In God’s people.

Jesus breathe on us!

Once God’s Word is in us, we must declare His Word into the situation.

In Matthew God told His disciples to speak to the mountain. This means that we must address the situation. We must deal with it God’s way.

Ezekiel 37:4 - Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!

(NLT) - Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord!

All too often we talk to ourselves. We speak to others but we don’t talk to the Lord and speak to our situation.

We talk to dead things all the time. – our job, hurtful people. – We need to speak life by declaring the Word of God.

We must prophecy or speak God’s Word over our situation.

When we are saved, we confess our sin and proclaim our belief in the resurrection.

Remember we were dead in our trespasses and in our sin.

It is Jesus’ resurrection that speaks to our resurrection Spiritually and in the future naturally.

God can literally raise us from death to Ife.

• He can raise our dead situations.

It is God’s nature to be a life giver.

• The power of life and death are in the tongue.  – speak life into your situation. – Prophesy!

Someone said that it is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.

We need to stop cursing our situation… it is already dead.

God’s Word is life and light – declare that. Speak that.

God told Ezekiel to speak to the bones.

The bones are what’s left of the situation. Bones are not nothing they are the skeleton of a body and they are the framework for a miracle.

We need to stop saying that the bones are nothing. They are substance.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

All you need is a mustard seed to have enough faith. Ezekiel had bones.

After you speak to the bones realize that there will be a season of things coming together.

Things will need to flesh out.

Ezekiel 37:7-9 (NLT) - So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. ⁸ Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.

When God restores life to things we desire an immediate response.

Restoration in the Greek, carries with it the connotation of a bone being set in place and then taking time to heal.

Miracles are instantaneous. Healing many times is progressive.

Being set in place and healing many times is a process that takes time depending on the damage, the amount of deadness and the nature of the healing.

Remember that Ezekiel was watching a reverse autopsy.

New Life isn’t always pretty. If you have seen a baby born you know what I mean.

It is beautiful and messy all at the same time.

Once things come together, they still need one more thing… the breath of God.

The new bodies that Ezekiel saw were nice but they were still dead.

A lot of people celebrate when things start coming together.  But… there is still no life.

Ezekiel 37:9-10 - Also 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.” ’ ” ¹⁰ So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

It is the breath of God that resuscitates situations and that breaths new life into us.

Nothing stands if it doesn’t have life in it…. Unless you prop it up artificially. This is what is happening in a great deal of the churches around the world. They have a form of Godliness but no power. They have a reputation of being alive but they are dead. They look life-like but there is no breath of God!

Listen a car without gas isn’t going anywhere. A church without the Spirit of God isn’t going anywhere.

Ezekiel 37:14 - I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.”

For years Israel was unsettled as a people, scattered among the nations of the world.

Today they are back in the land that Ezekiel prophesied about.

God wants to more than just settle you… He wants you to live and thrive in what He has for you.

He wants us as a nation to have His Spirit in us.

Can these bones live…Yes, they can.

Spirit of God come breath fresh on us today. Breath fresh on this church today.

May you and your family know the full, life-giving blessing of God.

Know that you are loved,
Pastor Marvin & Dawn

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