“And you shall know that I am the Lord, [your Sovereign Ruler], when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, O My people.” Ezek 37:13 (Amplified)
How do you define a hopeless situation? I am sure you have your own idea. However, Prophet Ezekiel knew he had encountered his own when God took him to the valley full of the dry bones of dead soldiers and challenged him by asking, “Can these bones live?” How was he supposed to respond to God’s loaded question? First, he did not know what was on God’s mind, so he risked presuming on God and second, he had no precedence on which to base his answer. He knew God had raised the dead in the past through His prophets, but then those were individuals who had only been dead a few hours. This situation was surely in a different category. These were long-dead corpses whose flesh had rotted and totally disappeared. Their bones had been bleached white by the unrelenting sun. As a result, every trace of life had disappeared and the bones were only perfect for making bone china. From Ezekiel’s limited human perspective, there was no way those bones could ever live again. Consequently, Ezekiel refused to answer God and instead threw it back at Him by saying “Lord, you know.”
Ezekiel reticence is understandable given the humanly impossible circumstance. So to further confound him, God commanded him to prophesy to the bones. In other words, God was saying that He would not only cause those bones to become living human beings again, but also intends to accomplish that miracle through human agency and by the power of His Spirit. God refused the direct option of doing things Himself and instead opted for the indirect of doing it through His chosen vessel. Hence, as God’s chosen generation, we the Church are the sole means by which God would make victors of victims by miraculously opening graves and resurrecting dry bones. In this end times, God will use you and I to unravel the power of death literally as well as figuratively. This means that God will not only use us to raise the physically dead to life, but also to reverse death-causing situations, resurrect dead relationships and cause His name to be glorified in our world. This is something to get excited about.
However, this only represents the first aspect of the end God intends to accomplish through us. In God’s mandate for Moses, He charged Moses to deliver the Israelites first from bondage and later lead them to the Promised Land. This is the same goal He has set for the Church in the sense that He not only wants us to effectively preach the Gospel message of salvation to a lost world but to also make disciples of all nations so that former sinners can indeed become saints and great spiritual warriors. So, to the question can these bones live? The only response God expects from you is “Yes Lord, for you can do all things”. So, start viewing your situation or that inveterate sinner from heaven’s perspective and you will see a miracle in the making and a spiritual warrior who is presently bound by sin. It is really true. God is about to move in our world. He wants to open graves and give life to the dead. Say yes to His word and He will commence His great work in your life and impact the world through you.
Prayer:
Lord, the dire situations that surround me often cloud my ability to appreciate your majesty. Please, open my eyes to your wondrous truths so that I may see as you see. Help me to respond by saying “Yes Lord” to your prompting question so that my dry bones can indeed live as you envisaged in Jesus’ name. Amen