Preparing for Pentecost - Mitch Levingston

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin 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 it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.

Let's jump to today's passage in the book of Ezekiel. Anyone actually read is the kill. Hey! Some hands. It's a pretty wild book. It's crazy book. I'll just give a little summary of it before we jump into this passage.

So, Ezekiel is a prophet, funnily enough, a prophet and priest who is living in Babylon. About. The book starts about five years after, the first group of exiles is sent into Babylon. So people like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Bendigo, we kind of know those names. Ezekiel's sent off with them. And so, five years after living in Babylon, Ezekiel sees his vision of God's throne chariot coming into Babylon and proclaiming a message of judgment that the Babylonians were going to destroy Jerusalem.

And so as the exile, which means God, may God strengthen, Zeke is told to have a hard head because he's going to give a hard message. And so that's what Zeke processes these weird, bizarre messages about God's judgment. And so that's what a lot of the book is about, is actually quite depressing to read. And so now we sort of in the back half of the book is where things turn around.

And so by the point of Ezekiel 37, the Jerusalem's been destroyed. The exiles well and truly entrenched. And so naturally, the people of God are wondering, well, who, we Yahweh, it seems, has abandoned us. We have sinned. We've lost everything. All hope is gone. And this is where Ezekiel 37 comes in. And we'll look at this a little bit later.

But there's some parallels here between Ezekiel 37 and the Genesis creation narrative. And so you kind of got to have that kind of background in your mind is reading through this just as God bought life out of nothing, out of the oceans of chaos, so God can bring life in exile. Now, now, before we do this, I think we might have a moment of reflection.

Let's have some self honesty here. How many of us have had times in our life where we feel dead? We just feel like dry bones. There's no life. There's no hope. I think at some point, at least, we've probably felt that. I felt I can't go any more. I cannot do this. I just there's just no more hope within me.

And that's what I love about this passage, is that a bone is a bone. Now, I'm no doctor, but I did study anatomy when I did my exercise science degree. And there's 206 bones in the human body. We need bones to move around. But if I'm just a pile of bones, that's no good. That's about worst case of worst case.

As you can get in life as they kill here by walking through this valley of dead bones. Which, if I remember how I mentioned before, secular was a priest. Priests aren't allowed to touch dead things. He sent into this unclean valley to walk among supposed to be touching these dead things. And the valley here is meant to symbolize this is an army that's fallen.

An army that is so cursed. I don't even buried in the ancient world to to leave people out unburied. It's a sign of a curse. So here, in the mind of the Jewish people, you've got this unclean death valley with people who are unburied. This is about the worst of the worst of the worst. You can be. And I love this question.

As they kill is walking through this valley God us for short question, but profound son of man, can these bones live? Son of man, can these bones live? Friends, today I ask you in your situation, can these bones live? Because we do forget this tonight. May I forget it? I think there's no hope. There's no way we going to get out of this.

This is just doom and gloom. How can God pull through? How God does he think it was no accident that this was the passage God kind of put on my heart to start off with, with kind of hearing what John was sharing with Kairos. Imagine those men in prison. They would feel like that now. The stories he was sharing of men who literally probably feel like bones dead.

There is no hope and God brings life. He's breath illuminates. Son of man, can these bones live? Answer is yes, but Ezekiel being as they kill, he says, sovereign Lord, you alone know I think, well, I don't want to say yes. I don't want to say no. God. You, You alone? No. Rather than rebuking Ezekiel telling, hey, you should know what I can do, he tells him something very strange and bizarre.

Prophesy to these bones and say them dry bones. Hear the word of the Lord. Then you went to Sunday school. You know that song? Then bind them bones. If I had that song in my head all week. But. But. Friends. If you are feeling like a dead dry bone with no hope, remember that question. Son of man, can these bones live?

The bones that, actually told. We give you an interpretation of what they represent. You know, the bones, the people who are feeling that their hope is lost, that they're completely and utterly cut off. See, one of the things you might have noticed was, Lou was reading that there's often a lot of talk about, you know, I'm going to bring you back to the land.

You know, you going to come out of the Grays and bring you back. I'm going to settle you back into Atlanta. Kind of comes up a few times. And there's a reason for that because in in the biblical worldview, land equals life. And the reason why land equals life is because in the Promised Land is where Yahweh's presence is, because in the Promised Land is where the temple is.

And so this kind of idea of bringing you back into land is saying, I'm going to bring you back into my presence, may give you your home back. I'm going to restore you, bring you back to the position that you had lost. And if we kind of skip forward to the end of the Bible revelation, what's the what's the city that comes down from heaven?

What's it called? The new what? The New Jerusalem? And we all know Jerusalem is the epicenters capital of the Holy Land. This is God's intention is for us to come out of the Christ, go back into the land, to be in his presence, sin, hopelessness, and exile, and not the final word. The final word is God's breath bringing in new life to us.

I mentioned earlier that there are, some parallels between, as we go up 37 and the creation narrative and so actually we just pop up there on the screen. And a lot of scholars have noticed here that the Hebrew is really, really similar. In fact, the idea of heaven is like here. And God going through a walk through this valley alludes back to that moment in Genesis three, where God's walking through the garden, and that time is God's walking through Paradise.

It's to bring a message of judgment and death. And now, this time, there's an irony that we begin in a valley of death, but this time it's leading out into the land of hope. And just as you can see that in Genesis two seven, human is formed from the dust of the earth, the same way the bones are there, lying exposed and dry out to the elements and just that beautiful image in Genesis of God forming Adam and going.

Breathing life into his nostrils. So we see the breath entering the slain, the four winds of the earth coming together to bring life and hope. And actually, what's really cool here, because I like to teach you guys, you know, the fact that you can come home to a dinner and say, hey, guess what I learned at church on Sunday?

I learned a new word, and the word we gonna learn today is ruach, that's all. So that together ruach. You might have heard that one before. You go do that at the end. We'll do that. I'll see you. I just but just how I see it. Because, you know, I'm not, Israeli, but ruach means spirit, breath and wind.

And you will have noticed that there's a whole bunch of different words that sometimes breath or sometimes wind in the Bible. In Hebrew, there's only one word, ruach. That's it. So when God breathes, when there's a wind, when it's his spirit, it's all the same word. We just differentiate the English. So he sort of know what the author is trying to say.

And we get this picture of all the creation coming together and God's Spirit to restore these people, to make them whole. And they're raised up. God told it then that when all the, you know, the bones come together, a tendons, a skin, and you know, the skins appearing on them, and there's still no breath in them, and the the breath comes in them, they come to life.

This vast army. Well, and let's me. One is like, why an army? It's just a really quite an interesting sort of image. And that's sort of reflecting what. Well, what's the purpose of an army? It's to fight. It's purpose is to defend. And so and, I was reading through a number of commentaries and this idea is the Army hit not so much wanting to fight and kill, but armies have a purpose here.

And so by raising up this army, it's saying, you exiles. You now have a purpose. You have meaning. You have hope. I guess in a similar way, just as John was sharing those men in Kairos, they have not got a purpose. Then I've got meaning, then I've got hope. They are part of. And again, this was a Sunday school song that I learned back in the day.

I am part of the Lord's Army, if you remember that song. Yes. I remember singing that at kids church. I won't sing that because your drums will start to bleed. But we're holding to this idea of an army again. Jumping forward to revelation. We see the language of army of of God raising up people with people for, purpose.

They started here with a valley of bones with no hope to spirit coming in, raising up an army to a great people with, purpose, people with hope, people with meaning.

As we kind of reflect on now. So the New Testament and the time of Pentecost, few people have died. A few scholars have noted this, that in many ways is Nickeil 37. Sort of. It powerfully foreshadows acts chapter two, because we've got, the, the, the valley of Dry Binds. You've got disciples who are waiting, who possibly still might be a bit fearful.

As Ezekiel speaks, the spirit blows wind. So as the apostle spake, the spirit blows in and transforms the crowd. Well, as echo prophesied, that led to the birth of an army. The church is birthed on that day. And so some people notice, I think you'll say some wonderfully foreshadows this moment at Pentecost. But and, I guess to the the biggest one is if you read John chapter 20, verse 22in a piece, disciples, he literally breathes on them and says, hey, here, receive the Holy Spirit.

But there's just two passages I want to look at from the Apostle Paul, which hopefully will bring a sense of encouragement to you if you are feeling a dead dry bone. Romans chapter eight, verse 11. Here's some very, very underrated passages of Scripture which, how many should spend a lot more time reflecting on? All right. This very slowly says you understand the gravity of what Paul is saying.

And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you. Easy read that really fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of get that when you stop and pause. Oh my goodness, that is so deeply profound.

Okay, that same spirit that Ezekiel prophesied any and I know it, he breathed life onto those dead dry bones. It is that same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is now in me, is now in you. That's amazing. That is just absolutely mind boggling. And if we truly believe that, imagine the difference would be in our lives and the lives of our community.

Imagine that we woke up every morning, said the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. Hey, is living within me. He's gonna rise up my mortal body. He's gonna give life to me. That's the spirit that God wants to share with those around us, those who feel dead and have no life. That spirit wants to breathe when those around us.

One of those passages that I think you get to spend hours and hours reflecting upon because of how powerful it is. And the second passage comes from second Corinthians chapter five, verse 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. That's always what Paul was alluding to. They whole my creation is talking about. It's like he's talking about what the spirit has done through Jesus Christ.

The old has gone, the new is here. Powerful, powerful things. Especially as we, preparing for Pentecost, preparing for God's Spirit to transform us, to transform our families, to bring new life into us.

As we finish this morning, close with a prayer from Saint Augustine. A prayer to the Holy Spirit. It says, breathe in me. A Holy Spirit. That my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me a Holy Spirit, that my work, too may be holy. Draw my heart a Holy Spirit that I love only what is holy. Strengthen me, a Holy Spirit to defend all that is holy God, me, then I, Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy man.

Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.

Be blessed.