Wilderness Wonderings

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.
Ezekiel 37:3-10

The events of the last several years have escalated to become frighteningly similar to the events in the history of Israel prior to their Babylonian exile. Abandonment of God. The people given to idolatry. Ungodly political leaders. Destruction, disease, and death all around. For seven years during the Babylonian exile, Ezekiel prophesied hopelessness and judgement against Judah and her enemies. Judgement because Israel did the very thing that Adam and Eve did all the way back in the Garden.

First they allowed temptation to sow a seed of doubt of God’s Word in their hearts. Then their vision was enticed by their own appetites. They rejected God’s commandments and ultimately hid from Him as they were exposed before the world. As a result, they were taken out of the “land flowing with milk and honey” into slavery once again. And true to pattern, the hearts of the people of Israel were dead as a result of their sin. Dry as a result of their abandonment. Scattered as a result of their own ambitions.

But Ezekiel comes along with a message of hope. God’s judgement would not last forever, because His mercies are everlasting. His promises must be preserved for the hope of the world. And He gives Ezekiel a vision to the valley of dry bones.

On the surface, the vision begins with a feeling of hopelessness. The army lay defeated and dead in the low ground of the valley. And God asks Ezekiel a seemingly rhetorical question: “Can these bones live?” The natural man would of course say “No. What is dead is dead.” But we are talking with the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth. The God of miracles. The God who breathes life into dead, decayed bones. The God who breathes hope into dead, withered hearts.

There are a few things that the reader should notice in this passage:

The prophet is only commanded to do one thing – speak the Word of God. Nothing more, nothing less. No commentary. No exposition. Simply speak over the bones the Word of the Lord.
The prophet had to obey the command of God in the vision in order to see what God was doing. Obedience to God’s commandments is paramount if we are to experience the miracles of God’s presence.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit that restores, not the words of the prophet. Without the intent and willful working of the Holy Spirit to restore, the bones would have remained dead and withered in the valley of desolation.
There was no life in the restored bodies until the Holy Spirit resided within the bodies. Appearance of godliness is still dead without the Spirit of God animating and living within the people. It wasn’t until “the breath came INTO them” that “they lived and stood on their feet.”

God’s Kingdom is not a social club. It is not an organization for political activism. It is not a non-profit, do-good charity. The Kingdom of God is “an exceedingly great army.” We are called to be ambassadors for Christ, representatives of the King – the ekklesia. Without the Holy Spirit of God residing in us, we are impotent and weak. Dead and withered. Lifeless and hopeless.

My friends, to speak the Word of God, you must know the Word of the Lord. It is imperative that you dive into the Scriptures and absorb every detail. The scriptures are the standard by which God expects us to live. It is the standard by which we will be judged. It is the standard by which we will be held accountable.

Speak the Word of God over your life. Speak His Word over your family. Speak His Word over your workplace. Speak His Word over your friendships. Speak His Word over your school. Speak His Word over your marriage. Speak His Word over your own heart. But be forewarned, it is not the Word itself that holds power. It’s the Holy Spirit of God breathing over the dried bones of your environment. It’s the Holy Spirit of God breathing into restored lives that brings hope to a people in exile from the presence of the Almighty God.

Return to Him today. Open your heart and receive His grace and His power and His authority in your life. And witness a miracle as new life begins fresh in you and the world around you.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork in in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11-12)

I grew up in the country, the grandson of a beefmaster farmer, so I know a little bit about agriculture. I remember nummerable summers hauling hay bales onto the back of a truck and trailer, stacking them high and building forts. I remember picking a long stemmed grass with wheatlike fruit on the end and chewing on it while we worked the fields. The green stem of the grass was the chaff and the seeds would branch off near the top of the chaff in multiple directions but looked like wheat, but it was not. When this grass would age, it would even look like wheat at first glance, with its beige hue. This would eventually be cut down with the rest of the hay field and included into the bales that we would provide for the cattle to eat. It was a good source of protein for them, but not really something fit for human consumption. This was what is commonly known in scripture as tares.

When harvesting wheat for the grain stores in Biblical times, once the wheat was brought into the storehouse, a worker would take what is called a winnowing fork to harvest the grains of the wheat and separate it from the chaff so that it might be processed into flour for bread and other wheat-based products. A winnowing fork is essentially a primitive form of pitchfork where the harvester would pick up wheat, toss it into the air, and the wind would then separate the smaller wheat grains from the chaff. Once the wheat grains were separated, then the chaff was removed from the harvesting floor and thrown out into the fire since it was no longer of any use.The fruit of the wheat chaff – the grain – would then be used for multiple purposes, but primarily it would be ground into flour and then used for making bread.

In our Scripture today, we begin with the baptism of water. In the ministry of John the Baptist, the immersive baptism was symbolic of the washing away of our sins as a result of individual confession and repentance. The act was a total immersion within the water as a means of ensuring complete cleansing from head to toe so that no part of the body was left dry and unclean. The symbolism of baptism changed after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ to represent believers being buried with Christ and raised again to new life (Romans 6:4).

But John mentioned a different baptism by Jesus whereas He would baptize us with the person of the Holy Spirit and with fire, a spiritual fire that will burn away the chaff, the useless parts of our lives that are no longer needed once the fruit of the Spirit has ripened for harvest – the fruit of repentance.

Additionally, in keeping with the context of John’s criticism and condemnation of the hypocritical religious leaders in the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Holy Spirit would in effect be the “winnowing fork” that would separate the good wheat from the tares. He would separate the good fruit from the waste.

The heart of repentance is one that demands and inspires holiness. Grace also demands and inspires holiness. Grace by definition is the imparting unto us that which we do not deserve. This definition implies that we deserve something much worse. Romans 6:23 declares “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The old Hebrew word for death and even the Greek word represent a separation from life. The root definition implies a separation in relationship, but the context implies a deeper separation – a broken relationship with our Creator. A relationship broken by our sin. But a relationship that can be restored supernaturally as a result of the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary.

It’s not enough to simply pray a prayer of forgiveness and then go about your life unchanged. If you still bear no fruit of the transformative power of grace, it is because repentance has not taken root in order to bear that fruit. In which case, when the time of harvest comes and the grains of wheat are sifted from the chaff, which pile will your life end up on?

Will you remain on the threshing room floor so that you might undergo the transformation from wheat to bread? Sure, it’s going to be a painful grind, but the end product is what provides nourishment to a world starving for the Bread of Life.

Or will you be tossed in the wind with the remainder of the chaff, separated into the pile of waste, to be burned away and forever separated from the saving knowledge of a relationship with the harvester of souls? Yes, hell is a reality. The lack of belief is not evidence for the lack of existence. Like Pascal, I’d rather gamble on the reality of spending eternity in the arms of my Savior. For if I am wrong, and there is no hell, then I have lost nothing. But if I am right, and I choose to reject Him, then I have lost everything.

Breath of Life

The Reward of Repentance

Holy Spirit

Footer

Follow Us

Bible Verse of the Day