Dry as Dust
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Have you ever felt spiritually dry? Your joy is gone. Your peace has departed. Your hope has deserted you? God’s presence seems a million miles away from you.
Your not alone. Many Christians come to a point in their lives where they feel spiritually numb, dry, maybe even dead. Oh, they did not purposely become this way, but something happened which brought them to such a low point in their Christian life. If you feel this way don’t loose hope.
Our text, the vision of the valley of dry bones, gives us hope when life seems hopeless. The biblical principles found in our text will revive joy in a joyless life, peace in an anxious soul, and power in a passionless life. Our spirit is revitalized because we are drawn closer to God.
Let’s explore Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones and learn the biblical principles which will bring spiritual life back to a dry, dead, and hopeless Christian and local church.
I. Down in the Valley of Spiritual Dryness (37:1-3)
By the “hand of the Lord” the “Spirit of the Lord” put Ezekiel in a valley of dead dry bones. Let’s observe Ezekiel’s vision to discern an important spiritual principle.
A. The Reality of the Valley of Dryness (37:1-2)
Who are these bones? Israel (37:11a) God deposits Ezekiel onto the battlefield where the whole house of Israel lay dead. Remember, this is a vision and the application is not literal but figuratively. The nation of Israel was spiritually dead. Spiritual dryness makes us feel and act dead.
What caused the bones to be very dry? (33:10) SIN
Sin causes God’s people to “pine away” (waste away). Sin causes our faith to fade, so that we no longer trust God, rather we begin to trust ourselves (33:13). The term “very dry” indicates the Israel had been dead a long time.
(ESV)
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
In the margin of my Bible I wrote this on 12/27/2010
Lord, how many years have I grieved you?
B. The Remedy for the Valley of Dryness (37:3)
This verse reveals the biblical principle for personal or corporate revitalization. God is powerful enough to do what dying and divided Christians and churches need: Breath life where there is no life and unite those who cannot be united.
Bryan Croft states in his book, Biblical Church Revitalization:
How does God revitalize a dying and divided church? Here is the answer:
A church is revitalized by the power of God through the Spirit of God at work through the Word of God by means of a faithful shepherd of God.
II. Getting Out of the Valley of Spiritual Dryness (37: 4-10)
Knowing that God alone can make dead bones live; the spiritually dry believer must put his/her faith in God’s power to revive life. How can dead faith be revived?
A. Hearing the Word of God (37:4-6) The Bible says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” What does the Bible (Word of God) do.
The Word Brings Life (37:5)
The Word Puts Us Back Together (37:6) Life can fall apart, but the Bible can put us back together.
A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to one who’s not.
3. The Word Points Us to God (37:6b)
“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me” ()
B. Obedience to the Word of God (37:7-8)
Obedience to the Word of God brings the movement of God and the fulfillment of His Word into our lives. If we wish to be used of God and to see God’s miraculous work around us, then we must be obedient to His Word.
C. Power from God Through the Word of God (37:9-10)
The power to get out of the dead valley of spiritual dryness does not come from us, rather the power comes upon us, from God. The word “breath” is the Hebrew word ruach which means “spirit.” The OT word has a NT companion; it is the Greek word pneuma which also means “spirit.” Only when God’s Holy Spirit gets control of our lives will we live again. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins. Repentance leads to forgiveness and revitalization.
Only when God’s Spirit breathes life into us will we be able to stand as a vast army for God (church).
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Holy Spirit, Filling of
“To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with one who is already there, in our hearts. Take up a sponge and while it is in your hand squeeze it. In that condition, plunge it in water and submerge it, keeping it in there. It is now in the water and the water is in it. As you hold it in the water, you open your hand, and as you do so the water fills all the pores which you release in this way. It is now filled with the water. When we receive Christ we are born anew and put into that sphere where the Holy Spirit is operating and the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us!! (Romans 8:9)” (Roy Hession, Be Filled Now [Fort Washington, Penn.: Christian Lit., 1968], p. 12).
III. Revived Out of the Valley of Spiritual Dryness (37:12-14)
When God’s Spirit breathes life back into the spiritually dry believer two things happen.
A. The Believer is Revived (37:12)
The former spiritually dry believer is brought back into God’s Promised Land. This is symbolic of the Victorious Christian life. Graham Scroggie wrote:
What historically was the land of rest, spiritually is the life of rest. To the Israelites the sphere of rest was a place, but to us, it is a Person, “in Christ in heavenly places” (). Christ is our inheritance, as Canaan was theirs, and our appropriation of the Lord is the antitype of their possession of the land.
God fully forgives and revives all who repent and trust Him. Revitalization is being restored back to God in sweet intimate fellowship and empowered service for His glory.
B. The Believer’s Trust in God Grows (37:13-14)
Through the sufferings, trials, and problems we face in the valley of dryness, God revives and we learn to depend upon Him more. Our experience of God’s revitalization of our lives and churches causes us to “know that He is the LORD.”
(ESV)
10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Listen to what the brother of Jesus wrote:
(ESV)
Testing of Your Faith
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Are you in the valley of dry bones? Realize that sin has placed you there and only God can get you out. Hear His Word. Obey His Word. Let His Spirit convict you of your sins. Repent and God will breath life (Spirit-life) back into you. Then, and only then, will you experience victory in you life and empowerment for Christian service.
LIFE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DRY AS DUST!!!